


The 'Evil' is Silent

by SinisterScribe



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Blue Gets a Whoopin', Daniel is badass, Dragon Wolf? Is that a thing?, Evil Charming BroTP, F/M, Gold is a dick, Hair, In which Emma acts like a human being, Maleficent for the Win, Mister Hyde - Freeform, Multiple Personalities, Not at all like the TV show, Oh God Snow Why, Tesseract, This was MASSIVELY inspired by An Unlikely Alliance by Addicted1, don't come back until you have, magic Henry, magical jewellery, no?, rapunzel - Freeform, read it yet?, so go and read that because it's freaking awesome, which is on ffnet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-02-05 08:32:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 49
Words: 361,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1812013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinisterScribe/pseuds/SinisterScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from the point of 2x05 onward. Regina manages to save Daniel from the madness of being brought back by Whale but something else comes along for the ride. She knows well that all magic has a price and this one is steep indeed. She's set to lose everything but  -when you hit rock bottom- the only way to go is up. <br/>Regina is forced to start anew, forging new friendships and rekindling old. As the lines between good, evil, science and magic, become blurred, Regina begins to realise that people like her may not get happy endings but that doesn't mean they can't have a hopeful beginning. <br/>Features faeries, werewolves, dragons, monsters, science fiction, Rumplestiltskin, a LOT of hair, swords, sorcery, sex, violence, scars, taverns, horse chases, murder plots, immortals, old laws of magic and colliding worlds. <br/>Not for the faint of heart, ratings are for adult language, situations and whatever else my depraved mind can come up with. <br/>Reposted from ffnet because they're all dicks. <br/>Oh, and I don't own anything from Once Land, if I did, the show would be a lot better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Love Again

**Author's Note:**

> I was planning on reposting all the chapters from ffnet in one go but -because of the uploading format here on AO3, it's quite time consuming. 
> 
> I have to format everything all over again. SIIIGH!
> 
> So make do with this for now.

Chapter 1 – Love Again

“No! No! I won’t let you hurt him!”

David Nolan –or James or Prince Charming or the Sheriff- was nearly bowled clean over by the frantic attack from one borderline hysterical Evil Queen. Regina Mills if you wanted to be mundane about it. 

David braced his weight against the stable door, the pounding from the other side threatening to throw him away from it. David was by no means a small man, but even he struggled to hold back whatever was on the other side. 

What threw him though, what shocked him more than a man raised from the dead, was Regina’s reaction. 

“He’ll listen to me!” Gone was the poised Mayor, the ruthless Evil Queen. 

She shook him as hard as she could, which was surprisingly strong for a woman of her petite size and beat at his shoulder with her hands, trying to stop him. Frantic and uncoordinated. Had she been thinking clearly, David had no doubt that she could have removed him, with lethal force had she been of a mind to, but she was terrified. All rational and calm thought up and gone.

He’d seen many things from her, master manipulator that she was, but never this. Never the sheer desolation, the helplessness that poured from her. It was her next words that nailed it. 

“Please…”

David would never have expected that from her. Demands, bargaining, bluffing, any of those, but never pleading. 

She collapsed against the door alongside him, her eyes begging him, screaming with it. David felt his chivalry gland act up. 

She was the Evil Queen. That…thing behind the door was a monster. It had maimed Whale, nearly killed Henry and…and Regina knew that. She knew that and, far from being apoplectic with rage, far from burning the entire town down to get to the man that had dared even touch her son, she was pleading for his life. 

“Let me talk to my fiancé.” 

David went slack against the door for a moment. Wavering.

“Please, David, please just let me try.” 

“Regina, he could kill you. He’s dangerous.” David was weakening and there was enough of the Evil Queen left in her to leap on the opportunity.

“I can look after myself. I’m hard to kill. You know that better than anyone.” She managed something like a smile, trying to gulp down her tears. “Come on, Charming, don’t tell me it wouldn’t make your life easier.” 

“Regina,” David spoke sharply, scowling at her, “I’m not about to let you be torn apart by some monster!”

“He’s not a monster!” 

David actually took a step back from her at the ferocity that poured from her.

“He’s my fiancé and he’s hurt and he’s scared and I’m the only one that can get through to him. Please,” Regina clutched at his jacket again, seemingly needing to in order not to just sink to the floor, “please let me try.” 

“I…”

“Somebody needs to go to Henry.” Her head lifted suddenly and she looked into his eyes. “You promised me you’d look after my son. Go and do that now. Make sure he’s alright.”

“Regina, I can’t.” David shook his head. “Whatever is in there might not be Daniel. It tore Whale’s arm off, he would have killed Henry if he could, why won’t he do the same to you?” 

“Could you ever do the same to Snow?” 

David blinked. No. Never. He couldn’t ever imagine being in enough pain to hurt Snow. To have come all the way back from the dead, to see her one last time…

“Please, David, Henry’s scared and frightened. He might be hurt. Go and help him. He’ll…he’ll let you help him.” She didn’t look at him when she said it, her head resting against the worn wood of the stable door. 

“Alright, I’m going to find Henry and I’m going to check on him. Then I’m coming back.”

Regina looked at him and then he realised what she was going to do. If she couldn’t get through to him, if she couldn’t save Daniel…there might not be anything to come back to.

He had to hurry. 

“Here.” David turned his gun, offering her the hilt. She looked down at it, nonplussed. 

“I don’t even know how to use it. Even if I did, I couldn’t.” Regina’s hands closed around his and she tightened his grip on the gun, pushing it back towards his body. “You keep it, swords are a little outdated here and…you need to protect Henry.” 

Everything in David was screaming at him. Screaming that this was wrong, that she was giving her last goodbyes to him. That she was going to leave him to try and explain to Henry why he had left the mother who had raised him alone in the stables with a monster. Other parts were howling that she was going to die, yet more were wondering why he cared. She was right, her death would solve a lot of problems but…but there was nothing he could do to stop her. 

He knew her asking was a formality. She’d remove him with magic if she had to and –if he did as she asked- Henry would be alright and then he could come back and hopefully be in time. 

He had to be fast. 

“I’ll be right back.” He holstered his gun and then gripped her arms, squeezing. “Don’t die between now and then.” 

She gusted a brittle laugh and an even more fragile smile. 

“I’ll do my best.” 

David gave her one last nod and then turned and ran from the stalls, heading in the direction that he’d seen Henry run off. 

Regina watched him go, her hand resting against the door of the stall. She felt the rough texture of the wood as if from very far away. She waited until David was completely gone and, slowly, turned to the door.

She lifted her hands, she felt like she was moving through water. Sounds were distorted, every move seemed to take ten times the effort. She slid the bolt back, eased the door open and all the air left her lungs in a whoosh when she saw him. 

Daniel. Her Daniel.

He was pressed against the back of the stall, his face turned from the light. He was so still. He turned, slowly, blinking. He was confused. He shambled forward, pushing off the wall. He looked curious, like he had seen her before but couldn’t remember where. 

Regina’s hands dropped to her sides, she was aware she was smiling.

Daniel’s hand lifted, questing for her face and Regina, felt her eyes burn but –for the first time in as long as she could remember- the tears threatening to fall were happy. 

Something that changed when his face twisted, rage pouring over him like someone had upended a jug of it over his head. She was so horrified that she could only stand frozen when he closed on her. He loomed through the door, his hand manacled around her throat, and hoisted her off the ground.

“Dan…!” She tried to say his name, to get through to him, but she choked on the word before she could finish it.

Daniel lifted her effortlessly, her toes scuffing against the wood shavings on the floor, her hands clawing at his wrist. Stars burst behind her eyes when he shoved her roughly against the wall of the stall. 

“Please…”

Regina could barely make him out around the red encroaching on her vision and the thunderous pound of her heart in her ears. All she could see was the mask his face had been pulled into and all she could feel was the steel of his hand banding her neck and the pounding in her head.

“I…I love you…” Her voice was dragged from her by willpower more than anything else and each syllable cost her in agony.

She saw the mask slip. Daniel’s eyes flickered, something stirring in him. A memory, a moment, and her words finally got through to him.

Daniel sagged, ragged pants torn from him, his grip finally loosened and Regina dropped from his hold, wracking coughs hunching her over. Her throat burned, and she leaned against the wall to hold herself up. She couldn’t give up, not yet. 

“Regina?” 

“Daniel.” Regina’s voice was torn from the crushing of her throat but that didn’t stop her from flinging herself into his arms when he stumbled towards her.

It felt good. It felt so good to be held by him again. He shivered all over, hunched around her, clinging to her like a lifeline. Her brief moment of happiness was shattered by the hoarse sound of pain that was ripped from him. 

“Daniel.” 

“Make it stop.” He staggered back, curling over on himself. “The pain…make it stop…please.”

“How?” She clutched at his arms.

“Let me go.” His eyes were pained, desperate. Wracked by the agonies that raced through him with every movement. 

“No!” She shook her head wildly. “I can’t. I can’t lose you again…without you, I’m lost.” She cupped his face in her hands, pleading with him. To not make her do this. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let him go again. 

To go back to the desolation, the loneliness, she couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand to be without him. She knew it was selfish, she knew she shouldn’t let him suffer but…but she just couldn’t…and neither could she let him suffer. 

“I love you.” 

Truly, madly, deeply. Beyond all reason or rhyme, she loved this man. She would take any pain for him. She would -and had- live in hell for him. Her heart had already been broken,   
her soul shattered. What did it matter if it all happened again, so long as Daniel didn’t suffer one moment more?

“Then love again.” 

Regina stared at him, sightlessly, even as he staggered back. Clutching at his middle and gasping in pain. She watched with a strange kind of disassociation. 

Love again?

How could he even suggest that? How could she possibly hope to move on from him? How could anyone ever compare to him? How could she settle for less?

Daniel hunched over, ragged sounds of agony ripped from him and, when he straightened she saw it. She saw the light that was Daniel leaving his eyes, saw it disappearing and she lunged forward. She had to stop this, she had to do something. 

What was the point in all that magic, all that power that she had clawed and bitten and torn at herself for, if she couldn’t save the one man she loved? If she couldn’t do this one good deed then she couldn’t see the point in anything else. 

There was nothing for her in Storybrooke, she would always love Henry, but she didn’t have him anymore. He was with the Charmings, David would keep him safe until Emma and Snow returned and then he’d have exactly the family he wanted and Regina…Regina wouldn’t be around to be tortured by it. 

It was madness, sheer stubborn stupidity, but she was going to do it anyway. She wondered if this was what nobility was like, if this was what it felt like to be a hero.   
Regina’s fingers laced through Daniel’s dark hair and she tugged him forward, pulling his mouth down over hers and kissing him one last time.  
True love. 

Despite all she’d done, the pain she’d caused, the lives she’d ruined, she had always truly loved Daniel and she always would.

She felt the power, the unstoppable power of true love, burst from their kiss. A rainbow wave of light, untameable, uncontainable, to try would be madness. 

Well, nobody had ever accused Regina of being sane. 

She snapped the spell into place, consciously using magic for the first time in weeks. She caught the power, all of it, screamed into Daniel’s mouth as it tore into her. Filling her completely, ripping into her body and burning her from the inside out. For a moment –one agonising moment- Regina thought she was going to lose it. She thought she was going to burn them both, but then she attached the new spell, forging a connection between her and Daniel, and poured her power into it too.

The explosion was incredibly powerful and stunningly localised. It went off like a nova between them. A swirl of black and purple light, whirling over in a Yin Yang wheel of power, and then lashing out.

Into Regina and Daniel. 

It was long moments before Regina came back to herself and she knew she had to be alive. Nothing dead could hurt this much. 

Regina groaned, huddling in on herself to try and ease her cramping muscles. She forced herself upright. She was accustomed to pain. She scrambled up onto her knees, breathing through it. 

She could already feel it…what she had done…the repercussions. 

In all honesty, she hadn’t expected to survive that, but there she was.

She had to blink several times in order to get the pink and green spots plaguing her vision to recede. She weaved alarmingly, her sense of balance shot, a ringing in her ears. She had just been in an explosion after all. 

Regina went completely still when she saw him. 

“Daniel!”

He was so still. Gods, please, no. Don’t let it have been for nothing, don’t let her have failed. She had to crawl over to him, she couldn’t stand yet, and gripped him by his lapels. 

“Daniel, please, wake up.” She cupped his face in her hands, not caring that the heat pouring off him scalded her. 

He was sizzling he was so hot, her tears evaporating to steam when they dripped onto his face. His eyes were closed, vapour rose from his skin and clothes. Excess magic. She’d poured a LOT of power into him. Hoping to obliterate the curse that caused him such agony. Repairing the damage done, forging connections between him and his new heart, taking the pain for him. 

And what a pain it was. 

Regina gulped, ignoring it, and collapsed over him, not entirely voluntarily. Her ear and cheek were burned by the magic snapping from him in miniature lightning strikes but she didn’t care. 

Boom.

She jerked away, almost too afraid to believe, and then pressed her ear to his chest again.

Boom…boom…bu-boom…bu-boom…

His heartbeat. A thundering, living, heartbeat. Regina choked a sob and Daniel’s breathing, deep and steady, lifted her as she lay over him.

Regina straightened, rubbing at her scorched face, not caring in the slightest, staring down at her true love. 

He was back. She had done it. She had finally done something good, something worthwhile. It had taken everything she’d had and more, but she’d done it. 

She’d saved him. 

Something moved behind her and Regina whirled, confused for a second. She saw David staring down at her, shock painting his face and realised how she must look. 

Clothes ragged from the explosion, her hair in disarray, makeup smeared from crying, bruises already rising livid on her neck and one side of her face seared red with burns…but happy. Grinning. 

“He’s alive.” The words rushed from her in an elated whisper. 

“Really?” David stepped cautiously closer, his hand on the butt of his gun and Regina moved, leaning over Daniel’s body. She shook her head wildly. 

“He’s fine. He’s not going to hurt anyone anymore. I promise.” 

David’s mouth twisted. Yeah, because her promises had a good exchange rate. 

“Help me.” Regina stood suddenly and then toppled, her legs buckling. 

David surprised himself by catching her before she fell. 

“I’m alright.” Her arms swinging out to help her balance belied her words, but she stubbornly staggered around to Daniel’s shoulders, struggling to lift him. 

“Should we move him?” 

“We need to get him to the hospital.” Regina grunted with the effort of trying to lift the much larger man. “Help me.” 

“Regina, I don’t think we should take him to the hospital, there are too many other people there. If he isn’t…better…”

“If he isn’t better, if this hasn’t worked, then I’ll deal with it myself.” Regina looked up at him. She had managed to get Daniel into a sitting position, his head lolling against his shoulder and her arms wrapped around his chest. “Then you can do whatever you want with me.” 

David blinked down at her again. This was new. This was disconcerting. He knew that Snow had told him that it had been her fault that Daniel had died but he hadn’t really believed her. Seeing Regina now, he had to wonder how much truth there was to it. 

He was also a little distressed that he was glad she wasn’t dead. He’d handed Henry over to Ruby as she had run to meet them, bidding her to take the boy and keep him safe until he could return for him. Then he had hurried back to the stables, hoping that Regina was alright. 

He frowned at that. 

It must be because of Henry. His grandson was one of the fiercest advocates of his mother’s redemption and –surprisingly enough- Regina actually seemed to be trying. Maybe it was   
Snow rubbing off on him, but David found himself inclined to actually let her try. 

“Please, David,” Regina seemed to force the words out, “help me.” 

David pressed his lips together. Then again, it might be because she was a woman in distress and he’d always been a sucker for those. 

“I had better not regret this.” David warned her and then stepped forward, pulling Daniel’s arm over his shoulder and lifting the other man into a fireman’s hold with a little effort.   
Damn, he was heavier than he looked. 

Still, he was no pushover and David managed to get Daniel and Regina into the truck without too much hassle. He had to put Daniel in the flatbed at the back. Regina, unsurprisingly, had insisted on staying with him, cradling his head in her lap. 

David threw the truck into gear and peeled out of the stable yard. This was weird. Beyond weird. Glancing into the mirror, he watched Regina’s face. She was staring down at Daniel, unmoved by the bouncing of the truck, probably magic –he snorted at that- but her face had turned pensive. 

He took that as a sign that Daniel might be deteriorating and pushed the truck as fast as he dared in the gravel road. 

He couldn’t be sure, but he suspected there might be another reason for the worry on her face. Maybe she was beginning to realise what she had brought Daniel back to. Who she had brought him back to. 

The Regina that had married the king had apparently been a very different one to the woman that had worn the crown of the Evil Queen. She still loved Daniel –David had no doubt of that now- but, when Daniel came back, when he saw what she had become, would he still love her?

David huffed out a breath and pushed the truck faster still. He wanted out of this. He didn’t want to feel sorry for Regina, didn’t want to attribute human emotion to her. 

Some people didn’t deserve happy endings.


	2. Clash

Chapter 2 – Clash

“Doctor Towers?”

Doctor Rachel Towers –or Rapunzel to her post curse friends- didn’t even look up from the chart she was scribbling over with the distinctive illegible writing of doctors no matter which world they came from. She didn’t recognise the voice speaking to her but she was far too busy with the shambolic ward around her to waste time with silly things like introductions. 

“Whatever it is, speak to the matron about it and she’ll tell you where to go.” Rachel dropped the chart into the appropriate slot and lifted another from the hands of the nurse at the station. She didn’t notice the way the nurse was staring wide eyed behind her at whoever was speaking. 

“But…” 

“No, I don’t have time to deal with you right now, yes, I realise that’s terribly rude, no, I don’t care, yes, you ARE stuck with a mere woman as a doctor, no, Doctor Whale is currently very much unavailable so –yes- you really ARE stuck with me…” Rachel began to reel off the answers she had tallied up from the FAQ’s of the day and stopped only when she had gathered the files of her next ten patients and set off to find them only to find an incensed brunette blocking her path instead. 

“You will help him now or I will rend you limb from limb.” 

Regina, the Mayor, Evil Queen and all that jazz, stood braced on those ridiculous heels for whatever resistance Rachel might sling her way. She was almost disappointed when the younger woman just blinked large green eyes at her. 

Her voice hadn’t been a shout but it had cut through every other sound in the waiting room of the hospital and everyone looked back at Rachel and the Queen wondering how the princess was going to deal with her.

Rachel frowned. She wasn’t a princess anymore. She was a doctor. She was useful. Her eyes landed on Prince Charming, and she tossed the files she held over her shoulder onto the desk with a scatter when she saw the man hanging off Charming’s shoulders. 

“What happened?” Rachel stepped forward, her hands going to the man’s neck and checking for a pulse. She found it –wow- that was strong. Lifting his head, she measured his breathing with the old world technique of holding the bright metal of her stethoscope under his nose and watching it fog with the heat of his breath. 

“Gurney!” Rachel bellowed suddenly when it became clear she was being left to deal with this patient being held up by the sheriff by herself.

Nurses scrambled into action and a gurney was produced to lay the man down on in a matter of seconds, Rachel’s eyes landed on the head nurse and narrowed when she found the woman watching the Queen rather than focussing on her patient. 

“We’re all going to have words about your conduct as medical professionals later, ladies.” Rachel’s voice held a frosty chill to it. “I promise you’re not going to enjoy it.” 

The nurse snapped back around, they all did, to focus on the strange man. They hurried to wheel him away to the ward and out of the waiting room. 

Rachel was satisfied that he wasn’t about to die off since his vitals seemed so strong. The steam rising from his skin was a cause for concern but Rachel knew magic when she saw it. She rounded on the two who had brought him in and slipped to full on Doctor mode.

Unlike most here in Storybrooke, her curse memories included having grown up elsewhere and moving to the small town for a quieter life. She knew she wasn’t supposed to know exactly which city, but she remembered doing her residency in a heaving ER. Learning to do triage on the fly, developing an iron thick skin and a disturbingly practical attitude.

Those memories clashed with the ones from the Enchanted Forest where she had been a battlefield medic in the war between the Charmings and King George. Exacerbated by the Blackguards of the Evil Queen who had seemed intent on causing as much bloodshed as Rachel had been preventing it and neither of them had cared which armies they had tended to. 

“Who is he? What happened? What did you do to him?” She directed the last at Regina. 

“I saved his life!” Regina took a step forward and stalled herself when Rachel didn’t even blink. 

“Wonderful. How?” 

“I…magic.” 

“Evidently, he’s exhaling it.”

“Shouldn’t you be helping him?!” Regina took another step forward and it was only Charming’s hand on her shoulder that stopped her from doing something inadvisable. 

“His vitals are steady, he appears to merely be unconscious. I won’t know more until I run tests and my nurses –despite a stunning portrayal to the contrary- are actually more competent than a bag of flatworms and can manage it themselves. I’ll look in on him when I have a better medical history. Which I can get from you, yes?” Rachel reached up and loosened the tie on her hair. Pushing it back and tying it up once more in a new tail. 

With the curse broken and magic once more in Storybrooke, Rachel’s hair had once more returned to its magical state and had gone from a feathery jaw length style to a streaming cascade down to her middle back in a fortnight. She was also rocking the fade to dark. The crown of her head a shining platinum blonde and gradually growing darker through gold, caramel, chocolate until a deep coffee brown at the end.

Wonderful. She couldn’t wait to try and do her rounds dragging seventy feet of hair.

“I don’t know anything like that.” Regina said. She kept looking beyond Rachel in the direction they had taken her patient. 

“Start with his name. Who was he in the Enchanted Forest? How did he come to be this way? What exactly did you save his life from? Take your pick, Majesty.” 

“His name is Daniel.” Regina fidgeted a moment which caused Rachel to cast a look Charming’s way. 

She couldn’t say she was overly fond of the man, she tended not to like royalty in general despite her own heritage, but she was surprised at his apparently allied status with the Queen. She couldn’t imagine his wife would be enamoured with that.

If she ever got back to feel any way about it. 

“He was a nobody in the Enchanted Forest. A stablehand. As for what was done to him…Doctor Whale experimented on him. He hurt him. I repaired the damage…I think.” 

“Experimented how?” Rachel wasn’t sure who Whale was from the other side, she didn’t know of anyone else that did either, but she had the feeling that this information might become very pertinent to her. 

She also knew that Whale had been down in the basement ward that Rachel wasn’t supposed to know about doing who knew what and why…well, looked like it had come back to bite him in the ass, didn’t it? 

Not that Rachel could summon much sympathy for the man, but having his arm torn off was a cause for concern when it could happen to her or –more importantly- her patients. 

“Daniel was dead. He brought him back. He used an enchanted heart to do so.” Regina spoke coldly, clinically. 

“He…for real?!” Rachel burst out. “Back from the dead? Enchanted hearts? Are you freaking kidding me?!”

“Language, Doctor Towers.” Regina rebuked her mildly and the doctor, who was really too young to be so, snorted. “Surely this isn’t outwith the realm of your sphere of influence being from the Enchanted Forest as we all are.”

“Sphere of influence?” Rachel demanded and stepped forward, her hands fisting in the pockets of her lab coat. “Let’s break down my sphere of influence, shall we?” She ground out. 

She’d had a hell of a shitty day putting up with the chauvinistic ass backwards view of half the people of the vaunted Enchanted Forest that women couldn’t really be doctors –only faeries could be healers- verbally bitch slapping reluctant nurses into doing their damn JOBS without getting ensnared in their damn vendettas from their other lives and then dealing with the shambles that Whale had left when he’d fucked off apparently to raise the dead and now –NOW- she had the Evil Fucking Queen telling her to suck it up when it was all her fault!

“I was raised, according to my cursed memories, as a scientist, an atheist. I believe in science, logic and fact. Gods, magic and royalty never factored into it. Now I have my old memories back, the ones of being raised by a witch, having sunlight-flower-nonsense hair, so long it has several ZIP codes, and being hip deep in magically inflicted wounds such as the charming enchantment of throwing up one’s own internal organs.” Regina flinched a little at that but Rachel didn’t let it hinder her stride. “So one part of me is saying ‘just wrap him in your hair, sing a song and he’ll be fine’ and the other half replies with ‘are you on glue?’. Thanks for that –by the way! So NO this is NOT in my sphere of influence and I would appreciate you getting over yourself for two damn minutes and offering up any information you might have that would alter this unhappy arrangement and help my patient!”

Rachel stood, toe to toe with Regina, her chest heaving with every breath and stilled when a soft clapping reached her ears. 

Looking over, she saw the occupants of the waiting room and a few of the nurses had heard her entire diatribe and showed their appreciation and support with a quiet round of applause. 

Pressing her lips together, Rachel seized Regina’s arm without a thought to the consequences and led her down the corridor towards Daniel’s room. 

“I apologise. That was unprofessional.” She halted outside the room and didn’t notice Regina’s attention switch to the unconscious Daniel inside. She watched with an intensity that belied her words of Daniel being nobody. 

He was certainly someone to the Evil Queen and Rachel’s mouth twisted. She stepped between Regina and the glass so the nurses couldn’t see Regina’s face anymore and spoke in a low tone that only the queen would hear. 

“Control yourself.” 

Regina blinked and suddenly focussed the full weight of her regard on Rachel who –admirably or stupidly- didn’t flinch. 

“I get why you might not want people to know that you care about someone but –if you really do care- I need to know more about what Whale did to this man and how it might affect him.”

Regina’s jaw clenched and Rachel studied her. This close, looking as a doctor, Rachel saw how hellish Regina looked. Her eyes were red with the charming accompaniment of dark circles surrounding them. Her skin was paler than it should be. She looked grey in places. Whatever she had done to help Daniel, it had cost her dearly. 

Rachel’s eye caught on the shadow on Regina’s neck and she reached out without thinking and tugged aside the collar of Regina’s shirt, buttoned higher than it really should be for the style. She studied the scorches –like bad sunburn- on Regina’s cheek and ear.

“What the hell happened here?” 

“It’s nothing.” 

“You have handprints on your neck.” Rachel gave her the ‘really?’ look. 

“Daniel wasn’t himself when he came back. He…he was dangerous.”

“He did this to you?” Rachel jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the man lying insensate on the bed surrounded by nurses. “Is he a danger still? Does he need to be restrained?”

“I don’t know.” Regina looked suddenly vulnerable. “I don’t know if…what I did, really brought him back. I don’t know if it stopped the pain.” 

“Pain?”

“What Whale did to him hurts. Crossing the death barrier…those are Old Laws. Broken at the offending party’s peril. The forces Whale has brought into play here…” Regina shook her head and looked at Rachel again. “He had no idea what the repercussions will be.”

Rachel digested that a moment. She wanted to know what the repercussions would be, but she didn’t want to get drawn off topic either.

“So…we have no idea if it will be Daniel in there when he wakes up or something else entirely?” 

“Doctor.” 

Rachel turned to find one of her nurses standing in the doorway to Daniel’s room. She pointedly kept her full attention on Rachel and didn’t even glance at Charming or Regina. 

“I think you should see this.” 

Rachel frowned at the tremor in Janice’s voice. The nurse was a veteran of the wars and the wards of the hospital alike. It must be a hell of a thing to rattle her. 

Rachel nodded and followed the nurse into the room. She approached Daniel’s bed and considered ordering the restraints put on. Hmm, probably best not to do that when overprotective royalty of questionable sanity was loitering in the background.

Regina was there too.

Rachel made a mental note to send Regina off with one of her less flappable staff to have her neck looked at and she’d cuff the unconscious man then.

Rachel stalled when her brain finally cottoned on to what her eyes were reporting. She blinked several times and stared. 

“…the hell?” She rounded the bed quickly, snatching up a pair of gloves and snapping them on. She leaned over the patient to get a better look.

Daniel lay on the bed, unconscious still, hooked up to the monitoring machines with wires and sticky tabs, an IV inserted in the back of his hand and his Enchanted Forest clothes unbuttoned so that he could be changed into a hospital gown. His waistcoat and cravat had already been removed and his shirt unbuttoned…to reveal the Y-incision scar running the length of his torso. 

Rachel reached out to touch it, running her fingers over the seam of flesh, incongruously alive and warm despite the association of Y-incisions and cold grey bodies that sent her little scientific mind to boggling. It was real. Very real. 

From either end of his clavicle to his sternum and then running down the centre line of his chest and stomach to stop just above the navel. The scar was deep as made evident by the silvery scar tissue that ran the length of it. Rachel leaned in even closer and stared, incredulous. Whale –if he really was the one that had done this- had stapled the wound closed rather than stitched it shut and the staples appeared to be made of silver rather than the conventional stainless steel and they…they had bonded to Daniel’s skin and tissues. 

Rachel’s stomach flipped over uncomfortably when the scientist in her was left floundering for an explanation. If left long enough –as long as the scar tissue suggested they had been left for- then the staples would be consumed by the flesh surrounding them. The body’s defences against foreign bodies demanding that they be coated in a padding of cells as a barrier to the rest of the body. Similar things happened with bullet fragments or shrapnel that couldn’t be safely removed from the body but metal did NOT fuse with flesh.

At least, not with any medical practices that Rachel knew of. 

Good gravy, Whale hadn’t just added a heart to this body –this man- he had opened him up like a gym bag and rooted around in the contents before zipping it closed again. 

Rachel’s face hardened with revulsion and a fury that she couldn’t fully comprehend. Regina was right. This was wrong what had been done to this man.

“What is it?” 

Regina’s voice brought Rachel back to the real world with a thump. She turned to look at the other woman, blinking a moment, gathering her thoughts. 

“Is it hurting him?” 

“No.” Rachel could have slapped herself when she realised she had no basis for that answer other than feeling. “At least, I don’t think so. It appears, for all the world, as if this scar is years if not decades old. The flesh has completely knitted together…as has the metal of the staples. I don’t think I could take them out without removing the surrounding tissues along with them.” 

“Will it cause him any problems?” 

“It’s ugly,” Rachel shook the tail of her hair back over her shoulder when it slithered around, “I’ve seen neater jobs from butchers, but it’s straight. The flesh has been joined levelly if not prettily. I see no reason why it should affect his mobility.” 

“But you’re not sure.” 

“We’ll know more when he wakes.” Rachel measured the readouts on the monitor and leaned closer, studying the figures. Holy crap. “His vitals are off the scale.” 

“What does that mean? Is he getting worse?” Regina stepped forward, fully prepared to intervene with magic if science didn’t yield the results she wanted. 

Rachel glanced at her and realised how close to the edge the other woman was skating. With a look around the room that made her unspoken command clear, the nurses vacated with a graceless speed that would add at least another minute to the tongue lashing they were all going to get later for their unprofessional conduct.

“I simply meant that his body –for all intents and purposes- is incredibly alive. His heart is BOOMING, his breathing his fine, his blood pressure is uncannily good for a man his age and his EEG readout tells me that he’s simply sleeping off…whatever it is that’s been done to him.” 

Regina’s face darkened at the reminder of how she had come to be in this situation and Rachel sought to distract her before she had a walking natural disaster rather than an exhausted woman to deal with. 

Then again, with Regina, they might be one and the same. 

“I want to get a look at what the weather’s like inside him. I don’t want to do an MRI without knowing what kind of metal this is,” Rachel indicated the silver staples joined to Daniel’s chest and stomach, “would you consent to me giving him an ultrasound?” 

“Like for a pregnancy?” Charming piped up and both women looked at him, apparently resigned to him having appointed himself resident conscience for the proceedings. 

“Yes but the technology doesn’t just work on uteruses and infants.” Rachel was somewhat surprised that he didn’t flinch like most men from the Enchanted Forest did at the mention of ‘women’s business’. “I can use it to read his internal organs just as easily.” 

“It won’t hurt him?” Regina was watching Daniel again, looking like she was repressing the fierce desire to go to him.

“There’s nothing to say that it will.” Rachel gentled her tone.

“You’re not certain.” It wasn’t a question but Rachel answered anyway. 

“We’ve been over this. I’ve never come across anything like this before. This is a blending of magic and science that should not be.” Rachel shrugged. “The best I can do is use the tools available to me to try and figure out what’s going on. You brought him back. He’s stable. I think he’s going to make a full recovery. Let me figure out how to best help him do that.” 

“Alright.” Regina nodded. 

“Good.” Rachel felt the relief pour through her. She wasn’t afraid of Regina, per se, she certainly didn’t hate her like many of the people in town did (that was a whole other kettle of  
fish), but she was incredibly aware of how dangerous the queen was. 

Rachel had seen first-hand and in full lurid colour –most of it being red- how destructive Regina could be.

After Snow had captured the queen and lost her nerve at the execution, the rumour was that something had been done to the queen that meant she couldn’t kill the Charmings.

Which had the effect of sending her completely off the deep end. 

She rallied her Blackguard and cut a bloody swath through the realms. Attacking Snow and Charming’s army with a ferocity that had been terrifying in its scale. She apparently  
hadn’t cared at all which soldiers she massacred, quantity seemed to be the flavour she most craved and George suffered losses as heavy as the Charmings had.

At the height of her reign of mayhem during the war, Regina had been referred to as the Red Queen…because her habit of being surrounded by a fine mist of it. 

Regina had never left survivors. Not intentionally anyway, so accounts of what exactly it was that she had done to the soldiers she came across were sketchy at best. Usually because said survivors were often missing limbs and a great deal of their sanity by the time anyone got to them.

Apparently she’d created some kind of monster and unleashed it upon the world. It would appear amongst the soldiers without warning, seemingly from nowhere, and lay waste to all it came across. It had the power to devastate entire battlefields, reducing both sides of the skirmish to nothing but red splatters and stinking wet ropes of innards.

The queen’s arrival would herald the end of the battle and the monster would disappear.

Rachel tried to shake off the memory of the small terrified man that had related all of this to her. He had clutched at her hand, desperately trying to get all the words out before he  
choked on his own tongue, he was so frightened. He hadn’t been a soldier, which had apparently saved him from the monster, but he had been terrified out of his mind. 

Rachel shook free of the memories and saw Regina recognise exactly what the doctor was thinking about and something very much like shame flickered over her face before she squared her shoulders and quashed it ruthlessly. 

“Go on then,” Regina waved at the bed with Daniel on it, “do your job.” 

Rachel opened her mouth to tell the queen where to stow her attitude and was cut off by a soft moan. She whirled to the bed, her primary thought that she had no idea what would be waking up and that the restraints were all the way down the hall in the storage closet, the next being that he was a patient first and a potential killing machine second.

“Daniel?” Rachel stepped closer to the bed, lifting a penlight from her pocket and shining it into his eyes as he opened them. 

He squinted and grimaced at the bright light, his pupils contracting to pinpoints and expanding again when she took the light away.

He tried to sit up and Rachel gently but firmly pushed him down again. 

“Easy now, you’ve been through the wringer.” She kept an eye on the readouts. His heart rate had increased, not unusual when the body woke up, and was already settling back to its slow but steady resting beat. “Let’s take it easy, hmm?” 

“Where…?” Daniel looked about himself and tried to sit up again, Rachel gave in and helped him sit instead of potentially injuring or stressing him by pushing him down again. 

“You’re in the hospital. You crashed for a while there.” Rachel reassured him in her best bedside manner she could muster. “How are you feeling? Any pain?” 

“No, I…Regina!” He lunged suddenly and Charming swept forward having slunk closer cautiously, ready to whip Rachel back out of reach should Daniel decide that he’d rather crush necks than talk.

“Where is she?” Daniel gripped Charming’s sleeves because he was the closest available target. “I hurt her, I was going to kill her, she’s not…?” 

Rachel was surprised at the horror in his face at the thought of Regina being hurt. He looked devastated at the very prospect. Horrified that he had caused her pain. If Rachel had needed it, his reaction was certainly enough to convince her that Daniel certainly wasn’t a nobody, least of all to the Evil Queen. 

“Hey, she’s fine,” Rachel hurried to reassure him before he became more agitated, “look she’s right…where’d she go?” 

Charming twisted to look too and all three of them stared at the empty spot where the queen had stood not a moment ago.

Rachel felt her brows rise in surprise.

Of all the reactions she had expected from Regina upon the waking of the man she had so fiercely protected, fleeing had certainly not been one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody has got to tell me how to format this shit properly because it's doing my nut. 
> 
> All i can do is copy and paste and then there's no bold no italics NOTHING!
> 
> Unless I copy as rich text which removed ALL manner of formatting and involves practically writing the bastarding thing again. 
> 
> HALP!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 – No Going Back**

 

_**The Next Day...** _

 

Regina entered the diner with a jingle from the bell above it.

It was just after ten, so late enough to have missed the morning rush but early enough to avoid the crush of the lunch crowd. Not that she had planned it that way, because she wasn’t afraid of anyone, but neither did she have the patience to put up with the glares and mutterings either.

Then again, her battle with her promise to Henry had never been easier.

Regina had never felt so weak before. She was exhausted. Even when her mother had been at the height of her power and Regina had been afraid of the sound of her own voice lest her mother seal her mouth shut –again- she hadn’t felt so powerless. At least then she’d had the illusion of escape, the thought that a fast enough horse and just the right opportunity would take her away from it all.

Now she didn’t think she could have lit a candle if her life depended on it. It was much easier to avoid the temptation of magic when the very prospect of using it made her feel physically ill.

The last time she had used it she…she had been about to kill Daniel. The one man she had thought she’d never be able to harm, the one person she had believed would be free of the monster that lived under her skin and she’d been a hair’s breadth from…but she hadn’t. Regina reached the bar and waited to be served. She took comfort in that small knowledge; she had tried love. For the first time in a long time, she had tried to love someone rather than loathe them. She had tried to help him with kindness rather than cruelty.

It had cost her. Oh, how it had cost her, but Daniel was well. He was better, awake and talking judging by what she had heard. The prognosis was good –the answer machine messages from Doctor Towers informed her- he was ridiculously healthy considering he had been dead for the better part of forty years.

Healthy enough to be released soon. Out into the town and the general populace where he…where he would hear about her.

He would ask questions, Daniel was the curious sort, and people would have no reason not to give him answers. Depending on who he asked, she imagined there would be no shortage of those gleefully willing to extol her sins to him in full lurid detail.

She had brought him back, the love of her life, and soon he would know exactly who she was.

“My usual, please.” Regina didn’t bother trying to smile when Ruby approached her.

“Please?” Ruby frowned at her.

“I said please.” Regina rubbed at her temple, she really didn’t have the patience for this.

“I know. That’s what’s weird.” Ruby looked her up and down.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re about to fall over.” Ruby comforted herself in the knowledge that it wasn’t the wellbeing of the Evil Queen that made her ask, it was just that she didn’t want to have to deal with the hassle of a dead body when the lunch rush turned up.

“Caffeine withdrawal.” Regina said pointedly.

“Right.” Ruby nodded. “One triple shot coming right up.”

Regina couldn’t be that ill if she still managed to summon that arctic chill to her voice. She looked like hell. Coiffed and made up as usual, impeccably dressed as was expected, but she stank of pain. Ruby’s senses had been sent sky high when the curse had been lifted and she could now identify scents like normal people could colours. Not just regular ones either, scents that humans couldn’t identify. Sadness, for example, had a deep Prussian blue hue, grief was a solemn indigo and pain was a crackle of white shot through with black.

Regina was surrounded by a miasma of all three. Drowning in the typhoon of agony. Still, she stood with her spine ramrod straight, one hand resting on the bar, her purse dangling at her side, and stared down one of the dwarves that was glaring at her.

Happy looked away first.

Ruby turned her full attention to the coffee machine before the other woman caught her staring.

She was disconcerted to realise that Regina had always smelled like that. Of apples –because she constantly ate them- honey, coffee, paper and ink usually, the soft smell of Henry embedded in there despite him having been absent from her life recently and, of course, the pain.

Ruby hadn’t been able to identify the individual strains as her cursed self, she’d just known the smell of Regina without –in her cursed haze- realising that not many people identified others by scent first. Now though, in her natural form, Ruby realised that the Evil Queen must have been like this all the time. Every day. In the eye of the storm of anguish that whirled around her.

Was it any wonder she had been torn apart by it?

Ruby stiffened at that thought.

No, she wasn’t sympathising…was she?

Maybe it was because it was familiar. Ruby had been steeped in a similar cloud of grief after…after Peter. She’d thought she might drown in it. It had clouded everything else for the longest time, blocking her other senses, making wolf’s time so much worse. She had been shattered for such a long time, it had taken Snow months and months to piece her back together…and Regina didn’t have that.

She didn’t have any friends. Nobody.

Ruby wondered, for a brief and shuddering moment, how she might have turned out if Snow hadn’t been there to help her. Without her best friend, what might she have become?

Not good, was the only conclusion she could come to.

Regina was powerful, a sorceress without peer, but Ruby was no lightweight. She could and had devastated entire platoons of soldiers back in the Enchanted Forest. In the war with King George, against Regina’s terrifying Blackguards, none of them had been able to stand in her way. Silver weapons weren’t exactly standard issue and –if Peter’s death had been allowed to drive her mad- she might well have gone much the same way that Regina had.

Ruby set the lid onto the coffee, making sure that it was securely in place and heaved in a steadying breath. She couldn’t believe she was about to do this, she couldn’t believe she was about to be _nice_ to the Evil Queen.

Well, she was going to try, she doubted Regina would make it easy on her but…yeah, she was going to make the effort. Maybe, just maybe, Regina wasn’t completely evil. Maybe she was just really, really, REALLY, broken.

Snow had always been Regina’s strongest advocate. Willing to forgive the woman who had helped raise her past the point of all sense –in Ruby’s opinion- but staunchly refusing to give up. Maybe Ruby was finally seeing what Snow had seen all along.

She owed it to her bestie to at least try.

Ruby turned, a smile on her face, preparing to steel herself against Regina’s refusal to accept even the smallest hint of kindness but stubbornly set on trying anyway. Her smile disappeared when the jangle of the bell announced another customer and Regina’s entire demeanour changed.

Ruby was convinced the diner actually got colder.

“Get. _Out_.”

The snarl that rumbled from Regina made Ruby’s wolf sit up and take notes.

Doctor Whale hesitated, halfway to the bar, when Regina spoke.

He glanced about the diner, as if searching for an exit without turning his back on the woman who was about half his size, and then steeled himself.

“I have as much right to be here as you do.”

“Not today.” Regina very deliberately set her purse on the stool beside the bar. “Not while I’m here.”

“You’re not the queen anymore. You’re not even the Mayor.” Whale refused to back down. “You have no power here.”

“Do you really want to test me?” Regina had started to shake, to tremble, and Ruby knew it wasn’t from fear.

She was trying not to kill him. Ruby could smell the magic rising in the other woman. The rage that had burned away the grief and agony, that had consumed everything else and left just that snatching hungry fire engulfing Regina’s entire self. No wonder she’d do anything to feed it.

“I did you a favour.” Whale frowned at her. “I brought him…”

Whale didn’t even get to finish.

Ruby almost heard the twang of Regina snapping.

Faster than Ruby would credit her for, Regina launched herself at Whale.

Not with magic, like everyone had expected, but with anger. Rage. Regina was apoplectic and she appeared to have completely forgotten that she could have skinned Whale with nothing more than a flick of an eyelash and a dose of magic.

“Regina!” Ruby dropped the coffee cup and ran for the end of the bar, knowing she wouldn’t get between them in time for Regina to maybe do some damage, but also knowing she was probably the only one strong enough to prise them apart.

She would later come to realise that she should never underestimate Regina.

Regina slapped Whale’s half raised arm away with a contemptuous rap of her knuckles and then closed both hands around his throat. Her leg lifted, slamming her shin between his legs and sending Whale crumpling to the floor. Regina followed him down without missing a beat, straddling his chest, her thumbs pressing down onto his carotid arteries and his windpipe simultaneously.

With a flex of her legs, she shifted so that her knees could contract about his ribs and force his lungs to empty. With that last wheeze of breath gone from him, Regina leaned forward and put her full weight on his neck. She could feel the cartilage in his windpipe begin to give and eased off the pressure just a fraction. That would kill him instantly and she wanted this to be slow.

The most terrifying thing about it all was the expression her face had frozen into. Not twisted in rage, not a war mask, but completely calm. Serene almost. She watched seemingly dispassionately as she methodically throttled the man under her.

Whale fought wildly. He bucked and kicked, lifting his knees to slam them into Regina’s back. His arms flailing, clawing at her slim wrists until something crackled alarmingly in her arm. Seeing that wouldn’t work, Whale punched her.

Again and again he slammed his fist into her face. She didn’t seem to notice any of it.

Whale knew he didn’t have long. His knowledge as a doctor and a scientist told him that he had less than fifty seconds before he would never recover from this. It wasn’t just the lack of air, but the lack of blood getting to his brain that would kill him.

Adrenaline flooded his system, poured through him by the frantic pounding of his heart. He became all the stronger in his death throes but he just couldn’t dislodge her.

This was ridiculous, he should be able to fling her off with little effort considering how much stronger he was but then she did have the crazy on her side. He kept hitting her, anywhere he could reach, blood pattered down onto his face from her split lip, the cut on her cheek he had lain open with his ring, the claw marks he had put into her neck and chest.

Her expression never changed. Not even a flicker.

“Regina!” Ruby had both arms wrapped around Regina’s waist trying to pry her away. “Regina, you’re killing him!”

Ruby hauled and lifted Regina away but ended up dragging Whale up too when Regina’s grip didn’t lessen in the slightest.

“Please!” Ruby moved her grip to Regina’s wrists, trying to pull her fingers away one by one if she had to. Her eyes wide when she realised that Regina had buried her fingertips completely into the meat of Whale’s neck. That wasn’t going to work either, not unless Ruby wanted to take half of Whale’s throat with her when she pulled Regina away. “Regina, please.”

Ruby tried to duck between her and Whale, trying to look the queen in the eye. Regina didn’t appear to see or hear her at all.

“Don’t make me hurt you. Don’t make me break you. Henry will never forgive me.”

At the mention of her son, a flicker passed over Regina’s face. Just for an instant, but it gave Ruby hope.

“Look at what you’re doing, Regina. You’re murdering him. Didn’t you promise you wouldn’t do that anymore?” Ruby spoke frantically. “If you do this, you can never come back from it.”

Regina blinked several times in quick succession. She gulped in a breath and then steeled herself again.

“What’s to come back to?”

“Oh hell,” Ruby realised what she was going to have to do, “I hope you’re as hard to kill as you seem to be.”

Hauling back, Ruby let fly with a mean right cross.

Regina’s head rocked back and to the side, lifting Whale off the floor when her grip didn’t slacken.

Ruby did it again. And again. Stronger each time, amazed that Regina still hadn’t let go. Once more, faster and stronger still, and the knock out reflex finally kicked in.

Regina toppled from Whale’s body, forced to go limp as she lost consciousness. She slumped over the floor, sprawled gracelessly. Her face a mess of bruising and blood, more of it staining her hands.

Whale sucked in a breath with a hoarse whoop and curled in on himself, clutching at his ribs and coughing raggedly. His eyes were wide and terrified and he scrambled madly away from Regina, even though she was quite obviously unconscious and no threat to him.

Well, not for now.

“The ambulance is on its way.” Happy cautiously approached.

“See to him.” Ruby ordered him, pointing to Whale, crawling over him to get to Regina.

She frantically turned her over, hoping against hope that she hadn’t snapped her neck. Huffing a breath of relief when nothing crackled, her neck didn’t have extra corners, and her pulse was steady if a little weak under Ruby’s fingers.

Making a snap decision that she may regret later, Ruby gripped Regina by the arms, lifting her off the floor and slung the older woman over her shoulder in a fireman’s hold.

“What are you doing?” Happy looked up at her wide eyed.

“Saving her life.” Ruby said grimly, heading for the door and swinging her way out of the diner.

“You owe me big time.” Ruby muttered to the unconscious Mayor.

 

_**Later, the Cells...** _

 

Regina awoke to the sensation of magic invading her body.

Her eyes snapped open and she stiffened when a searing golden light blinded her. Something was covering her mouth and nose. Panic seized her and the magic answered without conscious thought. She seized the invading spell, took it in the grip of her power, and wrenched it apart.

Regina hadn’t even noticed the musical hum going on somewhere over her head until it cut off on a scream and the bindings around her head yanked on her. She struggled madly, clawing at the silk scarfs that had apparently been used to contain her, tearing them from around her head and backing away in a wild scramble until her back smacked against a breezeblock wall.

“It’s alright!” Rachel shouted from where she had tumbled to the floor. “I’m fine! Don’t provoke her.”

Regina was still pressed against the wall, her chest heaving, and she looked about herself, ticking off who was where and the location of the nearest exit.

Her panic rose a few notches when she saw that the nearest exit was all the way across the room, with the obstacles of Charming, Ruby and a man she didn’t know between her and there and –oh, yes- the bars of the cell hemming her in as well.

A cage, another cage. Regina felt herself begin to shake.

The last time she had been in this particular cell hadn’t ended well for her either.

She fought for control, but it was a fierce struggle. Her chest was heaving, she knew her eyes were wide and frightened and she couldn’t seem to find the mask she usually hid behind.

“Rapunzel!” The stranger threw himself towards the door to the cell and Regina tensed when he came closer.

If the door opened, she could make a break for it.

“Let me in, she’s hurt!” He was caught by Charming to keep him away from the bars and Ruby was forced to help when it looked like the stranger was going to overpower him. It took both of them to hold back the struggling man, his handsome face twisted in anger and worry.

“Eugene.” Rapunzel, Rachel, didn’t shout but her voice got through to him. When he finally looked at her, she continued in a low and calming tone.

“I’m fine. She woke up snared in magic, blindfolded and gagged by she didn’t know what.” Rachel laboured to her feet with a slight grimace and dusted herself off. “I’d have come out swinging too.”

“What were you doing to me?” Regina’s voice was a hoarse rasp and she hoped nobody else noticed how weak it sounded.

“I was healing you.” Rachel was spooling her hair back into a tail.

It fell to her hips now and she braided it hurriedly, apparently more than familiar with getting it out of her way.

“What happened to clashing spheres of influence?” Regina kept a weather eye on Eugene, who was still glaring daggers at her.

He was going to have to do better than that, Regina had survived glares from gorgons.

“I was worried about swelling in your brain.” Rachel righted the chair she had been sitting in before Regina had knocked her out of it. “It’s not like I can take you to the hospital.”

Regina lifted a hand to her face and stilled when she saw her fingers stained in blood. She frowned and studied the rest of her. Her suit was ripped, buttons torn from her shirt so that it gaped to show the scratches on her neck and chest. They were pink and raised, angry welts, but Regina could feel the golden sense of healing that had gone into them.

“Come on, let me look at you.” Rapunzel scooted the chair cautiously closer and waited for Regina to decide what to do.

Regina watched her warily, like a beaten dog afraid to trust even the hand that feeds. Watching the others outside the cell for signs of aggression, she carefully scooted to the other side of the bed. The floor was cold under her bare feet and it seemed to be a shocking reminder of the real world.

Rachel moved her chair closer still, having to put her knees on either side of Regina’s in order to get close enough, and gently took Regina’s chin in her hands.

“I know I wanted to get a look at your neck, but I didn’t want it to be this way.” Rachel murmured, her gloved hands moving carefully down Regina’s neck from jaw to clavicle. Holding her jaw once more, Rachel carefully turned Regina’s head from side to side, testing her range of movement. “That hurt?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Then why did you ask?” Regina tried to pull away but Rapunzel just rolled her eyes and tugged her closer again, moving on to study her face. Checking how much she had actually managed to heal.

Regina had been a mess when Rachel had first seen her. Ruby had hit her so hard that she had dislocated her eye socket and fractured her jaw. Regina’s wrist had been broken from where Whale had tried to knock her away, one of her fingernails had been torn out when she had forced them into Whale’s neck. She’d had gouging marks in her neck and chest where Whale had torn at her to go with the bruises that still ringed her throat from where Daniel had tried to choke her not two days previous. She had been through the wringer.

Not to mention all the old scar tissue that Rapunzel had been able to sense when she had done the healing.

There was always a little of a two way street going on when Rapunzel had used her hair to heal, she guessed because of where the magic was being focussed, but it had been all over the place in Regina. Wounds healed magically a long time ago but it had felt like scars on top of scars. Had Regina not had the magic to rebuild herself from each of the wounds, she’d have more closely resembled a patchwork quilt than she would have anything human.

“Bedside manner.” Rachel prodded at the swelling still hanging around Regina’s eye. The other woman didn’t even wince, but Rachel knew it had to hurt.

“Is Whale…?”

“Dead?”

Regina carefully nodded.

“No. Ruby separated you before it got that far.” Rachel’s voice was flat, emotionless. “It’s a good thing you wanted him to suffer or else she wouldn’t have managed it.”

Regina didn’t rise to the bait.

“Why’d you do it?”

“I’m evil.”

“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.” Rachel spoke mildly. “It’s because of Daniel, isn’t it? I would have thought, since he’s alive again, that you’d be happy.”

Rachel still didn’t know the exact relationship between Daniel and Regina but she knew that Charming had mentioned the word fiancé a couple of times and that Daniel had shown more than a little concern when it came to Regina’s health after what had transpired in the stables.

“It had nothing to do with him.” Regina didn’t look at her as she spoke. “It was all me.”

“Well, yes, a diner full of witnesses will attest that it was definitely you choking the life out of the good doctor, what I want to know are your motives behind it. What was Whale really trying to do with Daniel?”

Regina remained stonily silent and Rachel tried something different.

“What did you do to me?”

Regina looked at her with a carefully blank expression.

“When you pushed me away, you did something magical, what was it?”

“Reversed the direction of the spell. Turned sympathetic to empathetic.”

Rachel stilled when she realised what that meant. Her hands pausing on Regina’s face and she looked inward, focussing on what she had felt mere moments before, the depth and range of it. She frowned and turned her attention back to Regina.

“I felt what you feel?”

“Just for a moment.” Regina was watching Charming, Ruby and Eugene on the other side of the bars again. “The intensity overloaded the connection and snapped it. As I had intended.”

Ruby and Charming appeared to be hip deep in a furiously quiet argument and Eugene stood just on the other side of the bars, glaring stonily at Regina.

“You feel like that all the time?” Rachel’s hands slowly lowered from Regina’s face.

“Hmm.” Regina answered absently, more focussed on trying to hear what Ruby and Charming where saying. She didn’t have to have the wolf’s hearing to know it involved her.

“Regina,” Rachel leaned forward and forced the other woman to shift her attention to her, “you mean to tell me that the agony that knocked me on my ass, that toppled me like a bowling pin –protected though I am by these damned _tresses_ \- is a constant fixture in your life?”

“What of it?” Regina frowned, trying to draw away. She was not weak.

Maybe if she kept telling herself that, she’d start to believe it.

Rachel’s mouth opened and she floundered a moment. She’d had no idea.

Well, she’d had a part of an idea, an inkling of –medically- what kind of stressors it might take for someone to go completely off the deep end and curse an entire world, magically lobotomising everyone in it…but this was a whole other ball game.

“Do you want something for it?”

“There isn’t anything for it.” Regina frowned at her, looking at her like she was the one that’d had the crap kicked out of her by a werewolf and was suffering some brain swelling herself.

“There is in this world, there’s medicine for this kind of thing. Drugs that can alter the brain chemistry. Help you.”

“I’m not taking anything you give me.” Regina sat back.

“I’m a doctor, I’m not trying to hurt you.” Rachel spoke in an even tone.

The pain. Even at her lowest, Rachel had never felt anything like it. The part of her that was the healer, not the hardened scientist but the girl that had waded through rivers of blood to help the wounded simply because she could, that part of her was horrified at the thought of anyone living with that kind of agony.

“Whale is a doctor and he hurt me.” Regina’s voice was small and she looked suddenly angry.

With herself, Rachel surmised. She hadn’t meant to say it. She hadn’t meant the punching and the scratching either.

“I’m not Whale.” Rachel sounded insulted at the very notion. “He and I will be having _words_ of his extra-curricular practices as well. I promise you he will not enjoy it.”

Regina snorted. Not believing her for a second.

“There are ways to manage this.” Rachel tried again. “Chemically and with therapy. If I had to guess, and I’m not a psychologist, I would say you’re suffering from acute and manic depression. That, on top of your evident psychosis, makes you –in the vernacular- completely bat crap crazy…but it can be helped.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” Rachel frowned at her. “I’m a doctor and –even if you don’t think you deserve it- you should be a patient. This will help you. Make things easier for you.”

“I’ve never had anything easy.”

“You ever stop to think that might be because you never accept help?”

“No.” Regina raked her with a glance. “It’s because people are disappointments and cannot be trusted. I will take nothing that you give me.”

Rachel heaved a sigh and tried to gather her patience. She’d come across this kind of attitude a lot recently, especially from those of the Enchanted Forest that didn’t trust this ‘new fangled science’ despite having lived with it for nearly three decades, so her willingness to truck with wilful stupidity was somewhat thin on the ground.

“It can help you heal. Help you be better.”

“No, it will help me be someone else. Someone I am not.” Regina spoke coldly. “Everything –absolutely everything- has been stripped from me. I would like, very much, to at least keep myself.”

“You’ll still be you, Regina.” Rachel tried not to get frustrated. “It will help you manage the pain.”

“By altering my mind?”

At Rachel’s look, the one that meant she was trying to spin that a different way, Regina continued.

“By dulling my senses and fogging my memories? No, absolutely not, I have far too many enemies and far too much magic to control to take the chance. I am accustomed to pain, it seems so shocking to you because you don’t know how to deal with it.”

“Neither do you judging by how we’re having this conversation at all.”

Regina’s jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed but her voice was level when she next spoke.

“The answer is ‘no’, doctor. I will either get better myself or I won’t. You will either be the doctor you took a vow to be and respect my wishes or you shall prove me right. The future is full of possibilities.”

“You’re a cast iron bitch. You know that, right?”

“It has been mentioned in passing.”

Rachel, incredibly, laughed.

“I find myself liking you anyway.”

Regina raised her eyebrows, clearly wondering if she wasn’t the only one with mental health issues.

“We all have our faults.”

“Hmm, and yours –physically at least- appear to be on the mend. Unless you’d like the hair wrap special again?”

“Kindly keep your freakish locks to yourself.” Regina made a show of drawing back and half lifting her hands as if to ward the other woman off.

“Alright, will you submit to a Tylenol…or ten?”

“Surely a doctor is not recommending I exceed the daily dosage?” Regina leaned heavily back against the wall, not willing to admit she couldn’t hold herself up under her own power anymore. She knew that Rachel wasn’t entirely fooled. She saw far too much with that medical eye of hers.

There was a time, probably about three weeks ago, that Regina would have disposed of her for such an insight but now the thought just seemed so…pointless.

“Everybody knows those are more guidelines.” Rachel waved it away and rummaged in her medical kit.

Not the old leather case that Regina had been expecting, but a boxy stainless steel one with little drawers that folded out, sterile things in plastic baggies and uniform orange pill bottles with white tops. She extracted one of them, studied the label, and then handed it to Regina.

When she hesitated, Rapunzel quirked a smile that was all the endearing princess and not so much the stubborn doctor.

“Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

“Your medical certificate is a figment of my imagination.” Regina grumbled but warily accepted the bottle anyway.

Studying the label she found it to be nothing more than a mixture of ibuprofen and codeine. Hefty painkillers, but nothing that would knock her out. Maybe loop her a little, but she was already a little loopy anyway.

“Two of those with every meal. Drink plenty of water. Don’t take more than eight in a day and call me if you notice any side effects.”

“Third eyes, extra limbs, that sort of thing?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of hyperventilating and excruciating stomach cramps. That can happen.”

“And I thought my magic was dangerous.” Regina arched a brow and rattled the bottle.

“It’s not magic, it’s science.”

“Magic is science.” Rachel pressed her lips together and snapped her med kit closed.

She locked the clasps and then looked at Regina, realising only then that she was being needled.

“That is quite the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, you just lowered the IQ of everyone in the room.”

“Between you and me,” Regina leaned forward and whispered, “I don’t think some of them will notice.”

Rachel smirked. She really didn’t have a clue why she liked Regina. Others might have said it was all an act, she’d been a bitch for the last twenty eight years, but she was also a master manipulator. She wouldn’t have managed to fool everyone if she wasn’t incredibly good at putting on a face but…Rachel didn’t think this was an act.

She thought this might be the real Regina peeking through. A woman that might not be as bad as everyone thought she was.

Especially Regina.

“Get well, Regina.”

“Oh yes, I must be fit enough to walk up the scaffold under my own steam.” Regina sat back against the wall again.

“I don’t think so.” Rachel reached for her jacket and pulled it on. A denim one. She was in her civvies.

Regina realised only then that she must have come from home and not the hospital. She had come here –on her day off- to help Regina. That would have floored her had she not been braced against the wall. She was left wondering, again, why the girl was so intent on helping her.

“Ruby has been advocating your release. Charming seems to think it’s a bad idea, but even his nibs only wants to keep you here for your own protection.” Rachel walked to the door of the cell and Eugene immediately approached.

He didn’t look like a Eugene. He looked more like a…Rafe, a Seb, Jack maybe. Something monosyllabic that could be screamed by his damsel in distress with a suitably impressive belt of volume to it.

He was as tall as Charming, with dark brown hair that flopped over his eyes. He wore a black tee shirt, stone washed jeans and a leather biker jacket. The clomping black boots roused Regina’s suspicions that he was a regular of the Ugly Duckling and would probably have the accompanying filthy motorcycle.

“I’m really alright.” Rachel cupped her husband’s hand when he touched it to her cheek. Her smile was soft and Regina turned away, her fingers tightening around the bottle of pills in her hand.

“I would have thought you’d have had enough of being confined with evil witches.” Eugene shot a look at Regina and turned back to Rapunzel when she jerked away from him.

“Don’t call her that.” She stepped back from the door and then waved at the bars. “Get the keys?”

“Rapunzel?” Eugene looked worried, gripping the bars, he looked at Regina again but found her staring at the wall pretending the conversation was beneath her notice.

“It’s been a long day, Eugene, just…let’s go home.”

“Hey, Charming, gimme the keys!” Eugene turned and called over his shoulder.

Charming nodded, digging into his pocket and fishing out the keys. He started towards the cell when Ruby caught his arm, forcing him to turn back.

“What?” Ruby didn’t say anything, just raised her eyebrows and jerked her head towards the cell. Charming heaved a sigh and grumbled something under his breath.

Regina tensed when he unlocked the cell door. The urge to bolt out of it was incredible but she muscled it down. Even if she managed to get past Charming, Ruby would certainly catch her and there was no way she was centred or strong enough to risk teleporting away. The state she was in, she was far more likely to end up half in a wall somewhere.

Charming’s eyes slid towards her, she saw his shoulders tensed, but he frowned and relaxed warily when she just looked back at him.

Eugene all but hauled Rapunzel out of the cell and engulfed her in his arms in a bone creaking hug. She slid her arm around his waist to give him a brief squeeze in return and he only drew back far enough to loop his arm around her shoulders.

“You scared the hell out of me.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I was a bit startled myself.” Rachel smiled and then turned to Charming.

“She shouldn’t be left alone. Million Dollar Baby over there knocked the hell out of her.” Rachel waved her medical case at Ruby who had the grace to look surprisingly sheepish for a wolf.

“Thanks for coming round, Doctor.” Charming nodded to her and Rachel smiled back.

“Yeah, just try not to need it any time soon.” She directed the last at Regina who held up her pill bottle and rattled it in farewell, a lopsided smile on her face.

Okay, so she didn’t _completely_ hate Rapunzel. Regina watched the doctor and her husband leave and switched her attention back to Charming when he continued to loiter in the doorway.

“You coming or what?”

Regina resisted the strong urge to examine the cell for whoever it was he might be talking to.

“To go where?” She said instead.

 _Never let yourself be taken to the second location_. The words pounded in Regina’s head. Because the second location is usually the murder room.

“The guest house. You have been remanded into Ruby’s custody.” Charming continued to hold the door wide.

Regina blinked languidly at him.

“Well?”

“You’re letting me go?” She cautiously rose to her feet, continuing to her full height when she didn’t immediately topple over. Dizziness assailed her but she battered it back and kept her feet.

“No-o, you’re on bail. Kind of.” Charming shrugged. “Ruby vouched for you.”

Regina padded over to the door and narrowed her eyes. She leaned over a little to look around Charming to see Ruby. Who waved at her. Regina frowned and –lifting her hand- waggled her fingers in return with an expression of such bemusement that Ruby grinned at her.

“You’re letting me go?” Regina looked to Charming again.

He heaved an exasperated sigh.

“Listen, this isn’t my idea, I don’t care where you stay, but I know you can’t be alone and you need someone to watch your back. You stirred up a lot of people with your little escapade in the diner. We’ve not quite reached lynching stage, but you reminded everyone why they should be hella scared of you. Ruby’s one of the few who can actually throw down with that many people and not get herself killed in the process. She’s also the only one willing to do it.” Charming sucked in a breath and tried to stymy his temper.

This entire day had been made needlessly stressful by Regina regressing. Still, she hadn’t broken her promise to Henry and –despite being locked up- had only used her magic to defend herself when she had thought she was being attacked.

“I don’t need a minder.”

“I have a whole town of people who would disagree with you.” Charming spoke wryly and folded his arms over his chest. He continued in a softer tone. “Henry heard about what happened. He wants to see you. Do you want him to see you in a cell?”

“He wants to see me?” Regina’s voice was a mix of hope and shame. “Even after…?”

“He loves you, Regina.” Charming spoke as if explaining to a child. Oddly hoping to rile her. Her temper he was familiar with. Her cold cruelty and contempt. He was used to that, he could handle that. Now she looked vulnerable and sad and –curse that chivalry gland of his- but it always acted up around small women that needed help.

Regina would balk at the idea of being in any kind of distress, least of all one that required a white charger to be rescued from, but Charming was beginning to wrestle with the strong urge to comfort her and it was pissing him off.

“So it’s from one kennel to another?” Regina, sensing Charming’s distraction, slipped out of the cell like she thought he was just waiting for her to be in the doorway so he could slam it on her.

“I put down fresh newspapers and everything.” Ruby smirked at her and held out Regina’s shoes.

“I…” Regina seemed to sag a little and rubbed at her temple. “Thank you.” She ignored the way Ruby and Charming stared at her like she had grown another head.

“For what?”

“For…everything.” Regina decided after a moment. “You could have let me kill Whale, you could have let the town take its justice and you could have left one of my heels in the gutter.” Regina picked a wet leave off the toe of one of her shoes. It looked scuffed, like it had been dropped on the street. “You didn’t do any of those things, you helped me so; thank you.”

“You are very much welcome.” Ruby laced her fingers together and looked her up and down. “So, roomie, you wanna get some takeout before we go back to my place and braid each other’s hair?”

“Don’t push it, Fido.” Regina grumbled and tried to lean surreptitiously on the desk beside her. Charming shot her a look but she pretended to study the damage to her shoe.

“It’s gonna be so much fun!” Ruby mocked a gush. “We can watch movies and have pillow fights and…”

“The only fight we’ll be having is if I give in to the temptation to smother you.” Regina growled. She should have stayed in the cell.

“Better than you have tried, shortie.” Ruby looked pointedly down at her. Regina tugged on her shoes with a scowl.

“Come on, Regina,” Charming tried in a gentler tone, “we’re just trying to keep everyone safe and that includes you.”

“Why?”

Charming shrugged.

“You’re trying to be better.” Ruby said more definitively. “We’re trying to help.”

“None of that answers why.” Regina pointed out. Even if it was selfishness on their part, she wanted to understand. She couldn’t predict people who didn’t have motives she understood.

“Because that’s what we do!” Ruby threw up her hands.

“Not for me.” Regina grimaced when she went to put her pill bottle in her pocket and found it had been ripped away. “People don’t help me.”

“Maybe they would if you didn’t bitch about it.” Ruby folded her arms over her chest and glared at Regina. She seemed to wrestle with herself for a moment and then continued in a mulish tone. Like she didn’t want to say anything but felt she had to. “You hurt. I get it. I’ve been there too. I had friends to help dig me out of the deep dark hole and…I thought maybe you’d like one or two to help you.”

Regina…thought she understood that. Ruby had rationalised sympathising with her and so she wanted to soothe her own conscience by helping Regina. Alright. That was fine. The idiocy of being ‘good’. She could work with that. The silence was awkward for a moment and then Regina nodded.

“Alright, I’ll let you help me.”

Ruby snorted a laugh and turned to Charming.

“I like how we still need her permission for absolutely everything.”

“I…” Regina opened her mouth to clothesline Ruby with a waspish remark or six but clipped her teeth shut on it instead. “I’m sorry. Old habits.”

Ruby’s eyebrows raised and she nodded after a moment.

“You’ll stay with me. Just for the next day or so. Let things cool down and make sure your brain doesn’t explode or something.”

“Lovely.” Regina lifted a hand and rubbed at her jaw. “I shall endeavour not to inconvenience you by dying just yet.”

“Glad to hear it.” Ruby looked over at Charming and then rested a hand on his arm. “Thanks, James, we won’t let you down.”

 _We_? Regina eyed the back of Ruby’s head when she turned away and, with a pointed look from Charming, Regina followed after her. Since when was she part of a ‘we’? Even with Henry, it had been a LONG time since they’d been a ‘we’.

It felt…nice.

Regina scowled. She didn’t want to owe these people anything but…she had promised Henry that she’d try to be good.

She supposed, well, she supposed Red wasn’t Snow. Neither was Charming. Putting up with them shouldn’t be too horrendous so long as they didn’t get too touchy feely or she might start getting ouchie bleedy.

Comforted with that suitably malicious thought, Regina followed Ruby out of the Sheriff’s Station.

It had been a long day, but she had the feeling it was about to be an even longer night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 – Favours**

 

“What do you want for dinner then?” Ruby looked back at her as they crossed the street towards the guest house.

“You’re actually going to feed me?” Regina had assumed that was a show for…well, she didn’t know who.

“Oh, you’re paying.” Ruby assured her. “You gotta eat though.”

“I know.” Regina followed Ruby cautiously around the side of the diner towards the guest house. She trod carefully, eyes darting warily, searching for any suspicious shadows.

“There’s nobody around.” Ruby was watching her. Noting Regina’s paranoia.

Then again, was it paranoia if they really were after her?

“There are ways even to sneak up on a werewolf, Miss Lucas.” Regina informed her coolly, her eyes never stopping their constant surveillance of her surroundings. “Your heightened senses actually make you a lot more vulnerable to certain tactics. Mace, for example.”

Ruby wrinkled her nose in sympathy at the very thought.

“That would not be fun.” Ruby held the door open for Regina, who scooted through it in that darting way that told Ruby she expected to be guillotined in it any second.

Ruby wanted to roll her eyes, but she knew you didn’t get that paranoid without damn good reason or a hefty neurosis. Regina probably had buckets of both.

“So, oh all-knowing one,” Ruby beckoned Regina deeper into the guest house and upstairs to where she and Granny lived, “what else do you know about getting punched in the head?”

“That it hurts.”

Ruby sniggered a little and then sobered.

“You didn’t give me much choice.” She glanced back at Regina. “You know I’m going to have to wake you up every hour to make sure you’re not losing what’s left of your marbles, right?”

“I am aware.” Regina glanced about the house.

She liked it. It was a home, not just a building where Ruby and Granny stayed. It wasn’t immaculately clean and elegant like the mansion, but there was a well rumpled lived in look to everything. There were no new pieces of furniture, everything was worn, but it had been well looked after. There were lots of cushions on the couches, pictures on the walls, and the place smelled of cookies and alpine.

“I know it’s not the Ritz but…”

“It’s perfect.” Regina surprised herself with the desire for Ruby not to feel judged by her. Usually she happily judged everyone left, right and centre, but Ruby had granted herself an amnesty, at least for a time. “It fits. You and Granny, I mean.” Regina looked away from the way Ruby was staring at her.

“Well…thanks. I guess. Granny would be…well, actually Granny’s going to be pretty pissed you’re here.” Ruby folded her arms over her chest and bit her lip. “I didn’t think of that.”

“I can go.”

“No.” Ruby surprised herself with how forceful that had been. “I mean, home is the first place anyone will look for you. No one will expect you to stay here. I’m not leaving you alone until you at least have a chance of making a run for it.”

So she hadn’t missed the way Regina was leaning on things when she thought the werewolf wasn’t looking.

“Granny will understand when I explain.” Ruby nodded to herself. “Probably.”

Regina pushed off the banister of the landing and followed Ruby when she disappeared through a doorway into what must be the living room. There were several bookcases filled with worn hardbacks, rugs in a collage over the floor, yet more framed photographs on the wall and it seemed very…cosy.

“Sit down before you fall down.” Ruby told her before disappearing into the adjoining room that had to be the kitchen. Regina listened to the sound of a running tap and accepted the glass of water when Ruby returned with it. “Two pills, down the hatch.”

Ruby took the bottle and shook the dose out, standing over her until Regina drank them down.

She puckishly stuck out her tongue and lifted it to show she hadn’t cheeked them and Ruby smirked.

“Drink all that water, I’m going to find you something that might fit.” Ruby disappeared again and Regina was left on the couch, wondering how she had come to be there.

She was exhausted. She’d been pretty low to start with and it hadn’t exactly been a day of relaxation. She wanted nothing more than to curl up and try and sleep it off, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she knew what she had to do after being knocked unconscious. It certainly wasn’t the first time it had happened.

“Hey, I left you some stuff in the bathroom.” Ruby reappeared. “Not exactly Prada, but you’ll look less like an extra from a bad zombie movie.”

“Thank you.” Regina made to stand and her eyes widened when the nausea hit her like a truck. Her legs folded and she sank back down onto the couch, paling considerably and clapping her hand over her mouth.

“You okay?” Ruby was at her side in an instant and Regina nodded hurriedly. She folded forward, putting her head between her knees and focussed on breathing in and out. Ruby reached out to touch Regina, to sweep her hair back so she could see the other woman’s face and she yelped when magic snapped at her with a crackle of burning energy.

“Watch yourself!” Regina lifted her head, looking grey, and saw Ruby sucking on her fingers. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s alright.” Ruby examined her hand. No damage done. It had hurt like a bitch but she did believe Regina when she’d said it hadn’t been on purpose.

The woman looked like hell, Ruby knew she tended to get very snappy when she was ill too. Magic must be the same as a fluey wolf. Ready to bite off the hand that isn’t wary.

“No harm done.” Ruby held out her hand to show the skin wasn’t blistered in the least. Then she turned it palm up and waited. Regina looked at it and then up to Ruby’s face, then back to her hand.

Ruby’s patience was given plenty of exercise in the time it took for Regina to decide she could trust Ruby with the monumental task of helping her to her feet. Finally, when she took her hand and let herself be helped up, she was a little less grey and even managed a smile with the thank you.

Regina managed to make it to the bathroom without being carried there and winced when the light went on and nearly blinded her bouncing off the white tiles.

She spotted the clothes folded on top of the hamper, noticed the shower was already running and clean fluffy towels were folded over the radiator. Catching sight of herself in the steaming mirror, Regina could see why.

Rough, didn’t quite cover it, she looked like she’d been in a car wreck.

She reeked of surgical spirits, so she knew that Rapunzel must have wiped most of her makeup off, including the stuff covering her bruises on her neck. Which had disappeared due to Rapunzel’s magical hair. Her eye was only a little swollen, the bruising barely noticeable though the white of that eye was almost completely red due to the burst blood vessels. The opposite cheek had another faint bruise, this one surrounding the pale scarring of a deep cut. The scratches on her neck and throat stood out newly healed pink against her skin and –when Regina removed her clothes and turned to examine the ache in her back- she found huge bruises almost completely covering the skin there. Those were darker than the ones on her face. Either the magic hadn’t had time to get to them before Regina had thrown it off or Whale had hit her more powerfully there.

Regina barely remembered what Whale had done to her to give her such wounds, it all got a bit hazy after he had said he had done her a favour.

Even then, anger roiled in her, but the nausea beat it to the punch and did a lot to help batter it down.

A favour.

A _favour_?

What the hell did he know?

Regina stepped into the shower, hissing at the hot water splashing against her multitude of wounds. She just stood there, absorbing the heat for a while, then torturously moved to clean the blood and medical stink from her. The shampoo smelled of strawberries and vanilla and the soap of sandalwood.

A favour.

Regina huffed something like a laugh at the very thought. Yes, he had brought Daniel back, but he had brought him back to what?

Pain, suffering, blood, madness and –since SHE had managed to stave that off- now he was alive and well to see that the woman he had loved was gone and the creature that remained was a sad, damned thing wearing her skin.

Regina tilted forward and rested her head against the cool tiles, enjoying the soothing smooth feeling.

She felt the magic roiling in her alongside her tumbling emotions. She was getting less stable. It was crackling through her skin now, making her more dangerous to be around than usual.

She hadn’t been lying when she’d said the price for breaking the Old Laws was steep. She hadn’t said that she’d been the one to pay it, either.

A favour.

Regina turned to lean her back against the cold tiles as well. She wondered if that was how the rest of the town would view it.

A favour.

Did bringing about the death of the Evil Queen technically constitute as a favour?

Regina shut off the shower and dismissed the thoughts as pointless.

It wasn’t like she’d be around to find out.

 

_**Next Morning...** _

 

Regina groaned when an insistent knocking prodded her awake. She lifted her head, wincing against the light streaming through a chink in the curtains, and looked blearily about herself.It was a moment of muzzy confusion before she realised where she was.

Ruby’s house, on the couch.

They had stayed up all night together, watching what seemed to be every single werewolf movie that had ever been made (something that Regina was sure was Ruby’s punishment for the curse). It had been surprisingly easy to share Ruby’s company.

She had eaten a ridiculous amount of food, needled Regina into forcing down a fair sized portion herself and then turned her attention to throwing popcorn at the television whenever they got something wrong, laughing at some of the terrible special effects and nudging Regina every so often to make sure she hadn’t fallen asleep with her brain bleeding out of her ears.

It had gotten interesting when Granny had come home from closing the diner to find Regina curled up on her couch drowning in the hand knitted afghan that was usually draped over the end of Ruby’s bed.

Ruby had hurled herself out of the living room, hustling Granny out there with her and slamming the door so Regina wouldn’t hear most of the exchange of heated words on the other side. Regina had made it easy on them, turning up the volume of the television to give them a little more privacy.

Ruby had finally come back in, looking a little harassed and Granny had stood in the door a long moment, studying Regina until even the queen began to feel uncomfortable.

She restricted herself to one threat of staking Regina out for the crows if she betrayed her granddaughter’s trust before announcing she was going to bed.

Ruby had known better than to apologise for Granny’s actions and had thrown herself into turning on another movie instead.

Regina winced when she heard the knocking again and she sat up, stretching carefully.

She could hear the hiss of water, Ruby must have gone to take a shower. Glancing at the clock, Regina was surprised to see that it was well after one. Ruby had kept her up all night and must have decided to let her sleep the last time she had dozed off.

The knocking again.

Regina grumbled her way to her feet and decided she didn’t want to know how she looked, padding out of the living room instead. She smoothed her hands through her hair and headed for the door.

She hesitated when she reached the landing downstairs.

Should she answer? Nobody was supposed to know she was there. If she answered the door, she would probably give the game away. Still, people were going to find out eventually and she had no desire to be cooped up in the wolf’s den for longer than she had to.

If someone found out she was there then she’d have the excuse to escape to somewhere more to her liking. Regina, looking down, sighing when she saw she was in Ruby’s grey tank top and a pair of red sweatpants that were too long for her. She’d been given a ridiculously oversized sweater as well but must have taken it off at some point because she was too hot.

Another insistent knock told her that she didn’t have time to go and change. Unlocking the door with the key in the lock, Regina opened it and smiled when a familiar voice sounded.

“Hi, mom!”

“Henry.” Regina grinned down at him, though it was stifled a little by the phantom pain of a split lip. It vanished completely when Regina glanced up at the woman standing behind Henry.

Regina stiffened and her hand shot up, when the Blue Faerie’s hand disappeared into that ridiculous cloak she wore, but she hesitated when she remembered Henry stood between them. Clever bitch.

Regina threw herself backwards, losing her footing and forced to tumble over her own shoulder and rise to a crouch. Her eyes blazed with magic, summoned by instinct and she choked it down with an effort when Blue simply stood there, watching her. Her hand remained on whatever was under her cloak though.

“Mom? You okay?” Henry cautiously entered the guest house but Regina wouldn’t look at him, she was focussed entirely on Blue.

“What do you want?” Regina rose cautiously to her feet, reaching out blindly and wrapping her fingers around a lamp. She lifted it from the hallway table, shaking the shade from it and gripping it in both hands.

It was solid wood, it would crack Blue’s skull like an egg if she got close enough. No magic required.

“Did Charming send you? Make you bring Henry so I wouldn’t use magic?”

“No!” It was Henry that answered but Regina’s eyes never left Blue even then. “I went to the Blue Faerie so she could come here and heal you. She has some faerie dust now. I convinced her to use it to help you.” He approached Regina but her only response was to reach out and grip him by his hoodie, deliberately tugging him out of her path towards Blue.

“Go now and it ends here.” She warned the faerie.

“I’m here to help.”

“We both know my history with faerie dust is not a good one.”

“I promised Henry I would help.”

“I can do without your particular brand of assistance.”

Blue stiffened, her lips pressed together in a white line.

Regina narrowed her eyes. What the hell was that? What had she said to get that reaction? There was anger, yes, but fear too. A stark bolt of fear that had gone through Blue. Not because of Regina, she had to sense the Queen was no threat to her but because…she thought Regina knew something. It was a wild leap, Regina knew, but the paranoia wouldn’t let her think of anything else.

Something she had said, the way she had said it, had lit a fire under Blue’s ass about ‘helping’ Regina. Regina had the very uncomfortable feeling that her chances of living to see lunch were dwindling into the single digits.

“Mom, she’s not going to hurt you.”

“You don’t know that.” Regina very nearly snapped at him. She was scared.

Blue had the full advantage. She had faerie dust, her wand, Henry to cripple Regina and that was before Regina even started to factor in her own weakened state and fluctuating magic. This was not a fight that would go well for her. She had to bluff it out.

“Yes I do!” Henry tugged at Regina’s arm but she shrugged him away. “She’s a good guy.”

Regina huffed a laugh.

“Of course she is.” Her voice was grim. “I mean it, Blue, leave now. Don’t make me hurt you.”

“I am just here to help.” Blue spoke gently, soothingly, but Regina knew a snake when she saw one. That cold calculation in her eyes, justifying what she was about to do.

For the greater good, she would tell herself. Everyone would be better off without Regina, that would be the rationale. She’d kill Regina after provoking her into attacking first. Self-defence, even Henry would believe her. With the Saviour’s son as corroborating witness, who would doubt her?

So…Regina couldn’t act first and –if she didn’t- Blue could ensnare her with her magic and make her dance like a gods damned puppet.

Regina couldn’t see a way out of this.

“You know your magic will do me far more harm than good.” Regina was stalling, trying to think of an escape. Could she run? Was she strong enough?

She knew her days were numbered, but she’d be damned if she was going to let Blue, of all people, be her executioner.

She’d rather go out on her own terms. With Henry perhaps believing she wasn’t a complete monster when she did.

“It will be a simple healing spell, Regina. Help those cuts and bruises fade, make you feel stronger.”

“No.”

“Regina…”

“NO.” Regina didn’t yell but her voice filled the room.

“Blue, maybe you should go.” Henry looked over at Blue. “If my mom doesn’t want help…”

“Look at her, Henry, she needs it. Don’t you want her to feel better?”

“Don’t talk to him!” Regina took a step forward, standing between Henry and Blue, glancing down at him to make sure she completely shielded him and –in that moment of distraction- Blue’s hand under her blue cloak withdrew to reveal her wand.

She raised it, Regina’s eyes going wide when she saw it, her body tensing, preparing to step forward and swing. Wildly hoping to break the wand before Blue could use it to control her- and found she didn’t have to.

Blue jerked back with a yelp when the crossbow bolt juddered into the doorframe a scant inch from her ear. Her cheek singed with the heat of its passing.

“What goes here?”

Regina whirled, raising the stupid lamp and faltering when she saw Granny on the landing above them. She had thought it was Ruby in the shower.

Granny stood, in fluffy slippers, a pink quilted dressing gown and with curlers in her hair, looking down at the scene in her lobby. She held her crossbow in one hand and calmly reloaded it without looking. She was glaring daggers at Blue instead.

“I was defending myself.” Blue hadn’t lowered her wand. “I came here to help and she was going to attack me.”

“I heard her ask you to leave.” Granny weighed the crossbow in her hand, not bringing it to bear, but it was still pointed at Blue. “Twice.”

“I was asked here by Henry.” Blue spoke tightly. “To heal her.”

“She said no.” Granny spoke to Regina. “Were you going to attack her?”

“Yes.” Regina let the lamp fall to her side, felt her shoulders slump. Trapped.

The damn faerie had backed her into a corner anyway. This would be her last strike. Charming would certainly lock her away on the word of Granny.

“Why?”

Regina frowned up at Granny.

“I asked you a question.”

“Faerie dust could kill me.” Regina didn’t see the point in lying. Henry gasped.

“Did you know that?” Granny turned her attention to Blue.

“Of course not, I would never…”

“Liar.” The word rumbled from Granny in a low snarl and Blue clapped her mouth shut. “I can smell it.”

“What you can smell is nerves.” Blue recovered herself. “I thought she was going to try and kill me.”

“Faerie,” Granny drawled, “if she wanted to, she’d have pinned you to the wall like the butterfly you are. Get out.”

“You’re going to believe her over me?” Blue pointed with her wand at Regina and changed her mind about it when she found herself looking at Granny over the length of her crossbow.

She hadn’t even seen the old woman raise it.

“The Evil Queen, her word carries more weight than mine?”

“It always has.” Granny was snarling again. “People _respected_ her.”

“I did nothing wrong and she’s dangerous.”

“What she is,” Granny’s voice rang with power, “is under the protection of the House of Lucas. Wolves guard her, Blue Faerie. Within the ranges of the Lucas Wolves; Regina Mills, Dark Queen, Captain of the Blackguard and scourge of the Enchanted Forest is granted amnesty from you and yours.”

Both Regina and Blue’s eyes widened at those words and they both stared up at Granny, outright gaping.

“Widow Lucas, do not do this on my behalf!” Regina stepped toward her.

“Swear to it.” Granny ignored Regina and spoke to Blue instead. “Acknowledge the declaration.”

Blue’s chest heaved, her jaw clenched, anger crackled from her. She narrowed her eyes at the old woman who was actually centuries younger than her own age.

“Blue Faerie.” Granny gritted, the crossbow never wavering. “Swear to it.”

Blue looked like she was at war with herself. For long moments, it looked like she might do something terrible. Something they would all regret and then she huffed out a low hiss of air.

“She recants!” Regina stepped into the path of the crossbow, ignoring the danger and looked desperately up at Granny. “Don’t do this. Not for me. I am not worth this.”

Granny shifted the aim of her crossbow, narrowing her eyes as she calculated the curvature of an urn and the resulting detour her crossbow bolt would take if she hit it just right. Straight between Blue’s eyes, if she was not mistaken.

“I do not recant.”

“Yes you do!” Regina resisted the very strong urge to throw something. “I’m a psychopath. I’ll let you down and don’t think she won’t hesitate to turn you both into rugs at the first opportunity. You don’t cross the Blue Faerie!”

“Then I suppose you had better be on your best behaviour.” Granny spoke mildly. “Swear to it, Blue Faerie. Thrice I have spoken your name and thrice I compel you. Do you deny it?”

“I hear you, Widow Lucas. So it is sworn. Me and mine shall not touch you and yours…unless provoked.” The magic of those simple words lashed out and Blue was bodily thrown out of the front door with a grunt.

Even she was surprised at the force of it. The house was a _home_ with one hell of a threshold. Blue would never be able to enter it again.

The front door slammed behind her with a cacophonous bang and Regina whirled back to look up at Granny.

“What have you DONE?!”

“What I’ve been looking to do for years.” Granny finally lowered her crossbow and started down the stairs towards her guests. “Good afternoon, Henry.”

“Good afternoon, Granny.” Henry murmured, looking at the snapping crackle of red and green magic racing around the door in its frame. “What just happened?”

“Missus Lucas just declared war on the faeries!” Regina hissed.

“What?” Henry stared up at Granny.

“Somebody had to.” Granny settled her crossbow on her hip.

“Over me?!” Regina threw her hands up. “You couldn’t find some other linchpin that wouldn’t get you killed within the week?!”

“Mom, what’s going on? What are you talking about? Are you guys gonna fight?”

“Your mother is apparently now the Drama Queen rather than that of Evil.” Granny smiled down at Henry though she didn’t speak unkindly.

“Missus Lucas…”

“Call me Granny.” Granny smiled. “We’re close enough for that now I think.”

Regina’s jaw clenched so hard it clicked.

“I can’t believe you did this.” She huffed out after a long moment of trying not to grind her teeth into dust. “I am the least stable person in this town. Consider what happened yesterday, another incident like that spun the right way and this house shall be dust, you and Ruby along with it!”

“Nonsense, Blue knows that would be her death warrant. She’ll never move against the wolves.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what she’s really like!”

“Girl,” Granny spoke forcefully and Regina’s mouth clapped shut, “I know exactly what she’s like. She lies more than you do, stinks of reptile and cold and she is _bad news_. Somebody has to put a leash on her and –until you’re up to the task yourself- I’ve hobbled her.”

“What’s going ON?!” Henry pleaded.

Regina planted her hands on her hips and her head fell back. She resisted the urge to groan. Finally she looked down at Henry.

“Granny just adopted me.”

“Huh?”

“I am now part of Granny’s family.” Regina waved ungratefully at the old woman. “She just told Mother Inferior there that –if she moves to hurt me- Granny and Ruby will eat her.”

“Stitch that,” Granny snorted, “I’ll put her in the lasagne. That way everyone can have some.”

“ _Unfortunately_ ,” Regina continued through gritted teeth, “that now means that Granny is responsible for my actions. If I were to –say- choke someone in the middle of a diner, then Granny would be answerable for it.”

“But you’re good now.” Henry looked up at her, his voice turning small. “Right?”

“Not nearly good enough.” Regina couldn’t look at him. “Yesterday I didn’t even hesitate I just…it is that easy, Henry. My grip on right and wrong is that easily lost.”

“But…but this is great!”

Regina whipped her head around to look down at him.

“Do even _hear me_ sometimes?”

“No, this is really a good thing!” Henry hurried to reassure her. He hated it when she was hurting. Hated it as much as she hated to see him hurt. “Family’s what you make it, right? Because you made me your family, but Emma and Snow and Charming, I made them my family too and now Granny has made you her family.”

Henry looked down at his shoes suddenly and scuffed his toes on the floor.

“So…now you won’t be alone anymore and, I think, that means you won’t be sad and angry and…hurt people so much.”

Regina blinked down at her son and was amazed.

Amazed that he could still think good of her when she had nearly killed a man not even twenty four hours ago. Had calmly and methodically tried to choke the life out of him because he had refused to do as she said. Well, she knew that wasn’t the case, there was more to it than that, but Henry didn’t know that.

Regina sank down onto her heels so she was closer to Henry’s eye level and tentatively reached out to take his hand in hers. She smiled a little when his fingers tightened on her own instead of pulling away.

“Henry, I’m…I’m not right. In the head, in the heart, I’m messy all over. I’m tired of hurting everyone. I don’t want to do it anymore. Yesterday, with Whale, it would just be me that got into trouble for it, only me that would be hurt and –now- Granny could be hurt too because I’m too…broken to know any better.” Regina studied his fingers because she couldn’t look him in the eye.

Perhaps she shouldn’t be telling him all this but it wasn’t like she’d have a lot of time to tell him about herself in the future.

Maybe, at least this way, he might understand her if not forgive her.

“How can I let anyone else trust me to do right when I can’t even trust myself?”

“You promised me.”

“And I want to live up to that, Henry. Now. In this moment. Yesterday, in the diner, I didn’t even remember I’d made that promise. I just wanted to hurt Whale.”

“I know, but,” Henry chose his words carefully, “remember when I was little and I ran out on the road? I ran right in front of Mister Andersson’s truck and he slammed on the breaks, but you got hit anyway because you were pushing me out of the way.”

Regina frowned.

“You remember that?”

“Yeah, you were cut and bleeding, but you picked me up and hugged me while you waited for the ambulance to come and –‘cause I was crying- you scared away the ambulance guys and you let me put the plasters on even though I did them squint. I know you let the ambulance guys do them again anyway when you let Granny look after me for a few minutes.” Henry spared a moment to smile up at Granny. He turned back to Regina and gently touched her face where he could still see the faint discolouration of bruising. “I remember most that you got hurt because of me and then you let yourself stay hurt so that I would feel better and…that’s when I realised what family meant. It means looking out for one another, even if it means you get a bit banged up while you’re doing it.”

Henry realised he was about to start crying like a baby, he hadn’t allowed himself to think about his mom like that for a long time.

It was easier to hate her. It was easier if he forgot all the good things she had done for him while he was hurting her. Every time he pushed her away, he focussed on the bad stuff she had done in the Enchanted Forest so he would be able to wreck her entire life by breaking the curse.

He still thought he’d done the right thing, he loved his…not his _real_ family, because Regina was his real family too, but he loved all of them and he’d broken his mom’s heart when he’d pushed her away.

“Mom!” Henry lunged forward and hugged Regina about the neck, knocking her over onto her ass. He followed her over and clutched tightly around her in a bone creaking hug. “Please don’t give up, please try to get better, please let somebody help you.”

Granny looked down at the heart wrenching scene of mother and son and told herself she was not welling up over it. She had used Regina to her own ends, the queen knew that.

Granny had always had a bad feeling about Blue. The faerie had set up hackles Granny no longer had every time she had floated by in the Enchanted Forest spouting her wit and wisdom to anyone that would listen. Granny knew better to ignore those instincts, because those same warning bells had rung in her ears nearly every time Mayor Mills herself had exchanged words with Granny and every time she had paid rent to Mister Gold.

She knew now that they were the Evil Queen and the Dark One respectively and, if Blue gave her the same feeling, well, let’s just say Granny was the proactive type.

Still, something chimed in her head when she looked down at Regina, hugging Henry tightly and looking down at the floor. Something very like…shame passed over her features.

Not shame for Whale, no. If Regina had been mad enough to kill the man with her bare hands Granny had no doubt she still felt fully justified in doing it. Even if she was sorry that it made Henry mad at her.

It was shame for something else.

Granny inhaled a deep breath, resigned to the dawning realisation that Regina was a lot more complicated than she had ever given the crazed woman credit for, and stilled when a familiar scent caught her nose.

She looked down at Regina and found the sorceress looking up at her. Something passed between them and Granny tilted her head in a silent question.

Regina, ever so subtly, nodded her head.

Granny’s gaze landed next on Henry and back to Regina.

Regina’s eyes flashed and she shook her head just as minutely.

Granny received the message loud and clear.

Henry had not been told, nor would he unless Granny wanted the wrath of the Blue Faerie and the Evil Queen both falling on her head.

Well, hell, it looked like Granny’s plan to use Regina against Blue was going to fall through.

The Queen would be dead before she managed to implement it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 – Crazed**

 

Daniel sat propped up in the hospital bed and tried not to go out of his damn mind.

He had been in this ‘hospital’ for days now and –despite his protestations that he was fine, that he needed to go, he had places to be and people to find- they all stubbornly refused to let him leave. He had tried, several times, to just get up and leave –lack of clothes be damned- but he had always been herded back into the room and –eventually- shackled to the bed.

It was a nice shackle, he supposed. Made of leather, padded on the inside, secured with steel buckles and a padlock. He only wore one, so he still had a free hand, but he was still shackled to the damn bed.

Daniel brooded to himself, his mind working furiously on an escape plan, yanking gently on the cuff in an absent motion.

_Clink, clink, clink_.

She was out there, Regina. He had hurt her. He remembered his hand closing around her throat. He shuddered at the memory. He might have killed her had he not come back. Had she not brought him back.

_Clink, clink, clink_.

That was another reason for the cuff. The girl, the doctor, had told him that it was just a precaution. She wanted to be absolutely sure than he wasn’t going to revert. Which apparently meant jabbing him with a lot of needles, sticking wires to his head, taking measures of his blood and a veil of silence from everyone he came across.

Doctor Towers, Rachel, Rapunzel (he noticed that most people in this strange land seemed to have at least three names) clearly ran the place. There was another man –a Doctor Whale- that Daniel hadn’t met and he was supposed to be in charge, but he noticed that everyone went to Doctor Towers and tended to avoid this mysterious Whale character.

_Clink, clink, clink_.

Yes, Doctor Towers had been the one to ward off anyone talking to him. He didn’t know why, but every single one of his questions about Regina had been stonewalled. If anyone spoke to him, it was Doctor Towers, and she would only answer his questions about where he was in the vaguest terms.

Magic had brought them to this land from the Enchanted Forest, it had been a curse. Everyone had been given new lives and new memories, they had forgotten who they were and the curse had recently been broken. That was the reason for the multiple names.

_Clink, clink, clink._

The Evil Queen had cast the curse, bringing them all here. Towers had gotten nervous when she had mentioned the Evil Queen. Then again, Daniel supposed the Queen might be named Evil for a reason and –considering the last witch Daniel had come across- he understood her nervousness completely.

He’d asked if it had been the curse that had brought him back and Towers had gotten even cagier. No, he’d been dead. Wholly and completely. It had been science that had brought him back but…magic that had saved him. Towers had looked uncomfortable with that.

_Clink, clink, CLINK_.

Daniel felt his frustration rising. He knew nothing. At all. This place –with its white walls, white uniforms, white everything- left him cold and feeling alone. He wanted Regina, he wanted to see her, to hold her. She’d –somehow- brought him back from the dead and now something was keeping her from him.

Her mother? Was Cora still alive?

_Clink-clink-clink._

He felt something clench in his chest, felt his new heart thunder so hard it pounded in his ears like hooves on a road. No, don’t let her be here. If Cora had been the one to become the Evil Queen, if her thirst for power had been successful, don’t let her be here too.

Don’t let her have ensnared Regina all this time.

_CLINK-CLINK-CLINK_.

He had to get out of here. He had to see her. He didn’t care that he was cuffed to the bed, he’d take it with him. So what if he didn’t have clothes? He’d walk a hundred miles naked and barefoot over glass to find her. He had been torn from her once, ripped away from her with Cora tearing his heart from his chest.

Never again.

_CLINK-CLINK-SNA-AP!_

Daniel jolted in surprise when the chain securing the cuff to the bed broke and his arm suddenly flew free of its tether. He stared down at the sheered links, his brows raised, there must have been a weak link.

He grinned.

He was free.

Daniel gripped the sheets, prepared to fling them from his legs and make his escape, out the window if necessary, but the door swung open and his hand clapped down on the railing instead. Giving the impression that he was still shackled.

Daniel frowned when a vaguely familiar face appeared.

“Hi.”

Daniel blinked at the boy, no more than ten or eleven, and tilted his head.

“Hi.” He mimicked uncertainly.

“Are you feeling better?” The boy stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, but not completely, leaving it open a crack.

Daniel looked at the gap hungrily.

The boy wouldn’t be able to stop him. He could duck around him, fling open the door and be gone before anyone knew what he was about…but the lack of clothes might tip someone off. That and…he had no idea about anything in this land.

He knew the magic was strange and it was everywhere. Enchanted items that anyone could use by manipulating the little levers and buttons that covered the ‘machines’. It made Daniel nervous, he didn’t have a very good track record with magic after all, but he refused to let it stop him.

Still, running off half-cocked wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He needed to know more. He needed to know if Cora was still alive, if she still held Regina in her thrall, where Regina was, who might be keeping her from him, what he might have to go up against to steal her free of it…it was an extensive list.

“Much.” Daniel realised the boy was staring at him.

He frowned at the lad, he looked so familiar. He studied him and stilled when he saw the faint handprint on the boy’s neck. It came back to him with a thump and he stiffened.

“I did that.” Daniel pointed weakly at the marks.

“Uh, yeah, you weren’t feeling very well.”

“I could have killed you.”

“You didn’t.” The boy tugged a stool closer to the bed and clambered up onto it. “I’m Henry. Henry Mills.”

“Mills?” Daniel frowned.

“Yeah.” Henry nodded and removed the pack on his back, opening it and struggling to lift a huge book from it. “Regina Mills is my mom.”

Daniel froze in the act of helping the boy pull the book from the pack and stared.

Her son. A husband. Of course.

Regina had been set to be married to the king before Daniel had been killed. It was the reason he had been killed, so as to not stop the royal wedding. It must have happened, Regina must have been married off to Leopold and…and borne him a son.

Daniel felt sick. He was aware of the beeping of the machines increasing. Felt his heart pounding in his ears.

“Hey, Mister Daniel, are you okay? You’ve turned a funny colour. You want a doctor?”

“No!” Daniel gentled his tone when Henry flinched and he forced himself to calm.

A husband. Leopold, Snow’s father. Regina’s husband.

Daniel could hear something deep inside him roaring.

She really had been taken from him. Completely and utterly. Sold to a man nearly thrice her age. A man she hadn’t loved. A man who wasn’t him.

“Does…does your father know you’re here?” Daniel heard his voice as if from very far away.

“Oh,” Henry’s voice quieted, “I don’t have a dad. He…died when I was little.”

“Leopold is dead?” Daniel knew he shouldn’t, but he was relieved.

“Who’s Leopold?” Henry frowned.

“The King.” Daniel shifted in the bed, he had the feeling there was a lot going on in this conversation that he wasn’t hearing. “Regina’s husband. Your father.”

“Oh, you mean Snow White’s dad. No, he and mom aren’t married anymore, not after she…well, that was before she adopted me anyway.”

“You’re adopted?” Daniel frowned.

“Uh-huh, I’m actually Snow White and Prince Charming’s grandson.” Henry beamed at him. “Did you know Snow White?”

“Snow White is barely older than you are.” Daniel stalled a moment. “How long have I been gone?”

“Uhm, near as I can tell, about forty years.”

Daniel blinked.

“That can’t be right.” He shook his head. “Regina hasn’t aged…”

But she had certainly changed. Daniel had seen it, through the haze of rage and pain, he had seen it. different clothes, different hair, but more than that. She’d seemed older, a woman in maturity, not the girl he had fallen in love with anymore. Still beautiful, always so beautiful to him, but certainly older.

“Yeeaahh…that’s because of the curse.” Henry shifted on his chair. “That’s what I came to talk to you about. I figured you’d want to know what had happened since you…”

“Died.” Daniel told him flatly.

“Yeah. That.”

“I’ve heard of the curse, cast by the Evil Queen.”

“Oh,” Henry looked surprised, “so you know.”

“I’m not deaf.” Daniel was still trying to wrap his head around all this. “Despite everyone trying to talk about me and not to me, I’ve managed to pick up bits and pieces.”

“And you’re…okay with it?”

“People ignoring me, coming back from the dead or finding myself in this strange land apparently forty years after my death but nobody seems to have aged?”

“Uh…I meant okay about my mom being the Evil Queen?”

“Snow’s daughter is the Evil Queen?”

“No.” Henry shook his head wildly. “My birth mom is the Saviour, she broke the curse the Evil Queen cast.”

“You have two mothers and no father?”

“No.” Henry heaved an exasperated sigh. He’d never had to explain this to someone who hadn’t lived it. He realised then how complicated it all was. “Emma is my birth mom, Regina is my mom who raised me. Snow White is Emma’s mom and…Regina is the Evil Queen.”

Daniel frowned at him, shaking his head slowly.

“That can’t be right.”

“I thought you might say that.” Henry heaved open The Storybook and flipped through the pages, finding a picture of the Evil Queen. The drawings were simple, but it was unmistakably her. He turned the book so Daniel could see.

Daniel leaned in closer and then shook his head again.

“You have to be mistaken, Regina’s mother was an evil witch. Regina was terrified of and abhorred magic, she certainly wasn’t evil and –if she raised you- you should keep a more civil tongue in your head when you speak of her.”

Henry blinked.

“But…” Henry half lifted the book. “This is proof. She is…was…evil…” His voice trailed off under Daniel’s glare.

“A book? Really?” He shifted higher against the pillows at his back, leaning closer to Henry. “You mean to tell me that you call the woman who raised you, presumably because the ‘Saviour’ couldn’t or wouldn’t, evil because of a BOOK?”

“The stories are true!” Henry tried to make him understand. “All of them.”

“Truly?” Daniel tilted his head and held out his hand as if for Henry to prove him wrong. “Regina cannot be evil. Not after the life she lived under it. Not after looking it in the eye over the breakfast table every morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her mother, boy. Cora Miller, the woman who tore my heart out and murdered me right in front of my fiancé, Regina Miller.”

“You…you were gonna marry my mom?” Henry stared at Daniel, clutching his book tightly to his chest. “Her mom killed you?”

“In cold blood. With magic. That’s why Regina can’t be the Evil Queen. She’d never do what her mother did.”

“Tearing out hearts…” Henry looked down at the book in his lap and opened it to another page. He turned it so Daniel could see. “She did that too.”

Daniel looked at the illustration of the ‘Evil Queen’, who did bear an uncanny resemblance to his Regina, with her hand buried to the wrist in a man’s chest. Daniel shook his head.

“There’s nothing to say that any of that is true.”

“Look around you!” Henry waved his arm wildly. “We’re in a whole ‘nuther world from the Enchanted Forest! Brought here by a curse, a curse cast by my mom, the Evil Queen. You want proof? Ask anyone out there, they’ve all been hurt by her or know somebody who’s been hurt by her. She’s evil, a villain, the only one worse than her is the Dark One!”

“That’s horseshit and I’m tired of being lied to.” Daniel threw back the sheets and hurled himself from the bed.

“Hey!” Henry scrambled to follow him.

Daniel cut an imposing figure, even in just a hospital gown. People got out of his way in a hurry when he snapped aside the sliding door so hard a crack raced clean across the glass pane. He strode through the ward, looking for the exit, unheeding of the shouts going up from the healers.

“Wait, sir, you can’t…!” Daniel simply stepped around the older woman –Janice he thought she was called- and carried on.

He was aware of the boy –Regina’s apparent son- following closely behind him, calling his name as well.

The hospital was as big as a castle, but Daniel had determination on his side and figured, if people were trying to stop him, he was heading in the right direction. He brightened when he saw the square of daylight beyond yet more glass doors and quickened his pace.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Daniel was forced to halt when Doctor Towers appeared in front of him from seemingly nowhere.

She was small, she barely reached his shoulder, but she gave off an aura of immovability that seemed to almost dare him to try her patience. That and she wasn’t yelling at him or trying to force him back into that bed. Just calmly demanding to know why he was interrupting her day.

“Away.” Daniel tried to step around her too but she effortlessly placed herself in his path.

“Where?”

“To find Regina.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. I haven’t finished running tests.”

“I don’t care.” Daniel kept trying and failing to get around her. He was on the verge of bodily removing her from his path.

“You should. Do you really want to go to find Regina and collapse on her? Don’t you think that might distress her a little bit?”

“You’ve been lying to me for days, why should I believe you?”

“Well, for a start, I’m fully clothed.” She gave a pointed look to the papery garment that covered him. “Nearly naked people have very little say in our society today.” Rachel tried again when she saw her attempt at humour fell flat. “I haven’t lied to you.”

“Nor have you told me the truth!” Daniel’s arm whipped out, his finger pointed at Henry. “This boy tells me that Regina is the Evil Queen. I cannot fathom how that could be true how anyone else could have FAILED to mention that every time I asked for her. The only reason they’d have stayed silent is if someone ordered them to. You.” Daniel loomed over her.

Rachel tilted her head up to keep his eyes locked with hers but otherwise didn’t move.

“I didn’t want to cause you unnecessary distress.”

“Distress?!” Daniel snarled. “I’ve just been told by a boy who –within five minutes of meeting him gives all the impression of being a spoiled ungrateful brat- that my fiancé is supposed to be akin to the Dark One. That she cursed everyone in this town and I just cannot believe that the woman I knew, a woman who was kind and forgiving to a fault, could EVER do something like that.”

“I’m not a brat.” Henry defended himself weakly.

Rachel and Daniel just looked down at him as if that had been so stupid that he had lowered their IQ’s by association just for voicing it. Then they summarily ignored him.

“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out, I thought Regina would come back for you. I thought she’d explain it herself. Hers is not a story that any of us know the whole of. Speaking to you for two minutes, I’ve found out more about her than anyone else has in the last forty years.” Rachel sighed and softened a little. “Which may be exactly why she’s hiding from you.”

Daniel frowned, he had now officially moved past Pissed-Beyond-All-Belief to Scared-As-All-Hell.

“Regina’s not…well.” Rachel couldn’t look at him when she said it. Couldn’t watch as she shattered his image of Regina as she had been and replaced it with who she had crumbled into. “She is, however, well enough to know that everything she has done is wrong. She’s trying, trying to come back from it but you are the only one who doesn’t see her as the Evil Queen. You’re the only one whose judgement could shatter her.”

“I’m not going to judge her! I’m certainly not going to break her. I just want to know that she’s alright.”

“She says she’s messy.” Henry finally caught their attention again and he hugged The Storybook to his chest. “In the head and the heart and she’s tired of hurting people…she’s really, really, tired.”

“All the more reason for me to go to her.” Daniel waved a hand at Henry as if he’d just been validated.

“No, all the more reason for you to stay away. She’s not ready to see you. She’s not ready to face you with what she’s done.”

“I don’t care about any of that!”

“She does!” Rachel worked to rein in her temper. “For the first time in a long time she actually cares about all the damage she’s done. To herself and others. There’s no way she can fathom anyone forgiving her if she can’t even wrap her head around doing it for herself.”

“So I have to abandon her?” Daniel waved at Henry. “Like he did?”

“I didn’t abandon her! She made me think I was crazy! I had to break the curse!”

“And her along with it by the sound of things.” Daniel didn’t even fully turn to Henry as he spoke, didn’t even give him his full attention.

“I’m not saying you can’t see her.” Rachel held up her hands between man and boy. “I’m saying that she needs time to get used to the idea of you being back. The last time she was happy was when she was with you and I don’t think Regina has felt truly happy since then. It will be a hell of a shock to the system.”

“So I have to wait? Forty years we’ve been parted, through death, curses and the rest and I have to wait?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Be better. Help me.” Daniel wanted to chew the walls he was so frustrated.

Regina was kind, gentle, beautiful. The love of his life and everybody talked about her with the same pity and revulsion usually reserved for lepers.

“I don’t think there’s anything…”

“Think again.” Daniel all but growled. “Of all the people that have spoken of the Evil Queen within my hearing you are the only one who is not repulsed. At the very least, you do not despise her and you do not fear her.”

“She doesn’t know me, she doesn’t like me, she’s not going to open up to me.”

“She doesn’t have to open up to you, you just have to get her to listen. Get her to think on it. She’ll do what’s right. I know she will.”

Rachel looked at him for a long and unblinking moment, measuring him.

“Alright, I’ll make you a deal. You go back to bed, let me do a last battery of tests, and I’ll go to Regina and speak on your behalf.”

“What are the tests for?”

“I want to find out what the metal in your chest is, run an ultrasound on that heart of yours and have a physiotherapist look over you. Make sure there aren’t any mobility issues that might flare up later. You have been frozen for about forty years.”

“And you’ll talk to Regina? Today?”

“Tomorrow. Tests first.”

Daniel’s jaw clenched.

“Promise me.”

“I promise that I will speak to Regina Mills on your behalf tomorrow morning as per our agreement.” Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Good enough?”

Daniel huffed out a sigh, looking over at the exit with an understandable longing on his face.

Rachel was no stranger to True Love. She could only imagine how she would react to someone trying to get between her and Eugene had she been in Daniel and Regina’s situation, but she knew it wouldn’t be rationally. She was incredibly surprised and a little sceptical that she had managed to get through to him.

“Alright.”

“You’ll go back to bed? Stay there?”

“For the next day.” Daniel agreed and turned, heading back to his room.

It was only then that Rachel noticed the sheered links of the chain. Damn, had he done that?

Daniel, ignorant of the doctor’s musings, scowled his way back to his room and slammed the door shut behind him.

He tunnelled his fingers through his hair and worked not to scream. He whirled when the door was pushed hesitantly open and froze when he found one very hurt looking little boy standing in the doorway. His precious book still clutched to his chest.

Daniel softened when he remembered how he had spoken to the boy. He was just a child and Daniel had scared him not once but twice now.

“I’m…sorry. For being cruel to you. You don’t deserve it.” Probably.

“That’s…” Henry couldn’t make himself say ‘okay’. He’d never felt less okay in his life. Daniel had just said out loud all the stuff that usually only echoed within Henry’s mind in the middle of the night. “Can I…can you tell me? About mom, I mean? Before she got…before you died.”

Daniel looked down at him for a long moment. Eventually he dredged a smile from somewhere and waved to the stool Henry had sat on to begin with.

“I’ll tell you why she’s good and you tell me why you think she’s evil. We’ll see who’s got the best stories.” Daniel knew the stories in that book couldn’t ALL be true, but he still wanted to know the rumours that would be flying around about Regina. About the kinds of things he’d have to steel himself against.

“Are you sure?” Henry shifted from foot to foot in the doorway still.

“When it comes to Regina,” Daniel smiled, “I’m always certain.”

Henry looked up at him and –slowly- a huge grin spread over his face. He dumped The Storybook on top of his bag and then scrambled up onto the stool.

“Tell me about the first time you saw her.” Daniel moved back to his bed and hopped up onto it. Feeling like an idiot in the damn parchment dress. He’d never wished more for a pair of breeches.

Daniel sighed and smiled, unable not to when he conjured the image of his first sight of Regina.

“The first time I saw her, she was flying.” Daniel smiled with a softer smile. “She was on a horse, not an uncommon sight in the Enchanted Forest but, when Regina rode…” Daniel looked at Henry’s rapt face and smirked. “Your mother, astride a horse, you’d believe they both could fly.”

Henry propped his feet up on the side of the bed and hugged his arms about his knees.

He found himself hoping. Hoping against hope that there really was more to his mom than the Evil Queen, that the face she had worn as his mom might not be the mask, it might really be her.

He hoped with everything he had that his mom was real and the Evil Queen was the fairy tale.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 – Tigers**

 

_**The Mills Mansion...** _

 

Rachel looked up the garden path and bit her lip. Heaving a sigh, she braced herself and pushed open the garden gate, crossing the garden and hesitating on the front porch.

What the hell was she doing? Eugene would have a fit if he knew she’d come here by herself.

Rachel genuinely wasn’t afraid of Regina but only in the same way she wasn’t afraid of tigers. She knew if she didn’t do anything to provoke the dangerous animal and it wasn’t hungry then it wouldn’t eat her. Probably. Still, there was academically not being afraid and –at the same time- being academically aware of how exactly Regina could reduce Rachel to a fine meat paste with little more than an errant thought.

If she was lucky.

Still, she hadn’t gotten through medical school by…well, she hadn’t gotten through medical school at all really. Rachel rolled her eyes at her own stalling and lifted a hand to knock sharply on the door before she could think better of it.

She remembered medical school, she grumbled mentally to herself. Vague and hazy memories, but she remembered. It had been rough. Hard and gruelling.

Rachel shoved her hands into her pockets of her deep purple coat and waited for the door to open. After a few more moments, she lifted her hand to knock again. She rocked on her heels and –when it became clear the door wasn’t going to be answered- she heaved a sigh of part relief and part disappointment and turned to go.

Stalling one step down from the porch when something occurred to her.

Where else would Regina be?

It wasn’t like she could be out for coffee with friends. She might be at the store or with Henry but…probably not.

Rachel bit her lip, screwed up her courage and tried the front door. She very nearly squeaked in alarm when it swung open soundlessly. Unlocked? Regina didn’t seem the type, even in a small town, especially when the marauding mobs for her head hadn’t been completely quelled. Not that a locked door would really prevent a lynch mob, Rachel rolled her eyes at herself. Honestly, she wasn’t that naïve little princess anymore.

Rachel slipped quietly into the house and decided against announcing her presence, she could hear music and –whilst she doubted the ravening horde out for the queen’s head would prefer the accompaniment of Tchaikovsky- why take the chance?

Rachel closed the door quietly and padded deeper into the house. The music was coming from the kitchen. She couldn’t see anyone in there so she opened her mouth to call out and her eyes flew wide when she saw a pair of bare feet on the floor behind the island countertop.

“Regina!” Rachel dashed into the kitchen and around the island counter, rearing back with a yelp when the queen surged to her feet and rounded on Rachel, something dark in her hand.

Rachel’s hand delved into her purse, levelling her own weapon as she fell back against the cabinets. Both women were breathing hard and seemed to realise the ludicrous circumstances of their situation simultaneously.

“Why do you have a frying pan in your purse?” Regina was the first to break the heavy silence.

“They’re practical. Were you really going to kill me with a scrubbing brush instead of magic?”

“It’s an ergonomically shaped wooden block that could just as easily crush your larynx as lobotomise you.” Regina straightened from her battle crouch and dropped said scrubbing brush to her side. “Why use magic when I don’t have to?”

“Okay, that’s…creepy.” Rachel lowered the frying pan and then stuffed it back into her bag. “Were you scrubbing the floors?”

“What was your first clue?” Regina stooped, dropping the brush back into the bucket and using a rag to mop up the suds on the tiles.

“I’m sorry it just seems so…normal.”

“Apologies for ruining the mystique but I killed off all my indentured slaves because it’s Tuesday.” Regina straightened and dusted her hands off on her jeans.

Yeah, jeans. Rachel had never seen jeans on the woman before. Nor a tee shirt, least of all a white one that appeared to be a little grubby. She’d tied her hair back in a tail as well, her face was flushed from the effort of scrubbing the already sparkling floor and Rachel pressed her lips together when she realised that the queen was quite possibly cleaning because she didn’t know what else to do with herself.

She’d been asked –forced- to step down as Mayor so Charming could take over so she’d effectively gone from the ruling power to the town pariah and –for the type of personality that Rachel had picked up Regina had- that was probably a worse punishment than death by urethral attack maggots.

“Why are you here?”

“To check up on you. Make sure you’re recovering alright.”

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.” Rachel stepped forward. “Will you let me look?”

Regina gave her a stony glare for a long moment and then relaxed her posture and tilted her chin up. Letting Rachel know that –for now- it was safe to approach.

Rachel carefully examined Regina’s face and neck. Glad to see the welts and bruises were almost entirely gone, only the faintest discolouration to be seen.

“Can I see your back?” Rachel remembered the horrific bruises and the cracked ribs Regina had received from the pounding of Whale’s knees onto her back and shoulders.

“No.” Rachel got the message and took a step back before the queen helped her on her way with a well placed spell. “I need to make sure they’re healing properly. Back injuries are a serious thing.”

“No.”

“Regina…”

“No, Doctor Towers.” Regina said firmly. “I’ll not give my back to even you.”

Rachel sighed and realised that she’d been given a hell of a trust already. Since she hadn’t been bodily thrown out of the house nor had she had her fingers amputated for touching the queen, Rachel supposed this must be the equivalent of trusted confidant to Regina.

“Most people call me Rapunzel.” Rachel offered a smile, trying to play on that. She really was worried for Regina.

“Do you prefer that?”

Rachel blinked at the question. In all honesty –no- she preferred Doctor to Princess but most people had automatically slipped back into calling her by her original name. Rachel shrugged.

“It’s not like I earned the title of doctor, is it?”

“You did at the hospital the other day and in the cells yesterday.” Regina picked up the bucket and moved to clean up, emptying it down the sink and spending an inordinate amount of time rinsing it and mopping up afterward.

Rachel frowned. She was playing with fire. She knew she was. Regina didn’t like people. She was a psychopath, suffering an acute disassociation between positive and negative emotion as well as the difference between right and wrong. The best Rachel could hope for was to be tolerated and she had the distinct impression that bringing one of the people that Regina actually loved into the conversation was about to send the tide out of the shallow harbour that was Regina’s patience.

“Daniel has been asking for you.”

Regina stilled in the process of stowing the bucket under the sink and straightened. She leaned back against the counter and folded her arms over her chest.

“Why does this concern me?”

Rachel frowned.

“You’re the closest thing to next of kin that he has and –apparently- you’re the only one that knows him. No one else has recognised him or come looking for him. Charming hasn’t been able to find out anything about him from Henry and his book…and he asks for you. Constantly. Every shift change, every new face he sees, every time I check on him, he’s still asking for you.”

“He doesn’t know me.” Regina’s voice was flat.

“He seems to think he does.” Rachel planted her hands on her hips and frowned, trying to figure it out.

“He is mistaken. He came back from the dead, it’s not surprising that he would imprint upon the first person that he…”

“Bullshit.” Rachel might not have been very good at spotting lies, the first eighteen years of her life evidence of that, but a blind man could have seen through that.

“If you’re going to break into my home, the least you could do is keep a civil tongue in your head.” Regina scowled at her.

“I didn’t break anything. The door was unlocked.” Rachel dismissed it. “Listen, I don’t care who he is to you, that’s between you and him, but the man is healthy. I have no reason to keep him in the hospital and I need the bed. He needs somewhere to go and I would rather it was with someone he knew.”

“He doesn’t know me.” Regina added a glare for good measure.

Rachel opened her mouth but was cut off before she could get another word in.

“This conversation is over.”

Rachel heaved a sigh knowing enough about evil witches to know when not to push it but she tried again anyway.

“Listen, I’m not here as some sort of cursed refugee, I’m here as a doctor. I want the best care for my patient. I think you want that too. I think we could meet halfway on this. No one will harm you if you visit the hospital, I’ve made it clear that it’s neutral ground. I’ve even made arrangements for you to come by outside regular visiting hours so it lessens the chance of you meeting people that might take exception to your presence.”

“Why?” Regina shrugged a shoulder. “Why go to all this effort? Why do you care?”

“He’s in pain. Not physically but sometimes that can be worse.” Rachel shrugged. “I want to help him and I think him talking to you would go a long way towards that. Besides, my view on good and evil is a little more fluid than everyone else’s.”

“Oh, so because I care about someone, I’m not evil, I’m just misunderstood?”

“So you do care about him?” Rachel tilted her head and realised her mistake immediately.

Regina’s face hardened with a glare and she pushed away from her post by the counter, approaching Rachel with a malicious intent.

“You have outstayed your welcome.” When Rachel didn’t immediately scurry out of her house Regina seemed to go cold with rage. She spoke in vicious clipped words. “There aren’t any towers in Storybrooke, Doctor, you had best go before I find a fitting replacement.”

Rachel found her temper and shoved Regina back with both hands to her chest.

“Alright, I get it, you’re evil. Big deal!” Rachel threw her arm wide.

“You think that scares me? You think I care about that? I was raised by ‘evil’ and I was –for the most part- HAPPY. Yeah, that’s right, I had a good life. The woman that raised me was just scared and alone and didn’t want to die. Yes, she was selfish and stealing me from my real parents was inexcusable but she was kind and good to ME and I killed her!” Rachel’s chest heaved.

“She was the only mother I had ever known and she died because of me. She died and I had to listen to everyone vilify her and remember her only for stealing me. Not for the good things she did, not for holding me when I was scared, tending my wounds when I was hurt, teaching me to read and write or trekking for three days to get to the ocean just to get white shells for me to make paint just because it made me happy!”

Regina blinked at the younger woman. Surprised at the force of her words. She doubted Rachel meant to say any of it, but the flood gates had obviously opened and there was nothing the young doctor could do to stem the tide.

“Everyone else remembers the villain. The kidnapper. The witch. They praised me for killing her. Yes, I was devastated when I found out she had lied to me, I wanted nothing more than to be wrong, but she was still more of a mother to me than the woman who gave birth to me and she’s dead because of me!” Rachel’s chest heaved and her shoulders slumped, she looked away from Regina and blinked rapidly, her eyes bright.

“Shit.” She whispered.

Regina stood awkwardly hoping intensely that the other woman wouldn’t break down. To say she wasn’t good at comforting people would be an understatement. She didn’t know how to deal with her own pain, never mind anyone else’s.

“You want to know why I don’t hate you? Why I want you to have a chance with this man of yours?” Rachel didn’t wait or even seem to need to wait for Regina’s answer. “It’s simple; I was GLAD to forget about the Enchanted Forest. My memories of Gothel in this land are happy ones. I remember living with her in a ranch in the middle of nowhere, of caring for her because she was always ill, she died here from a congenital heart defect, she’s the reason I went on to become a doctor…at least, that’s what I remember.” Rachel finally looked back at Regina and her jaw clenched. “The curse wasn’t a curse to me and that’s… _horrible_.”

“Been holding that in a while?” Regina finally asked, she had meant it to come out cold and condescending, hoping to drive the young woman away, but it was sort of rueful instead.

“Hah!” Rachel managed a laugh. “Only about thirty five years now I suppose. Not even Eugene knows…”

Silence descended between the two women again and Regina resisted the quite strong urge to fidget.

The doctor wasn’t afraid of her. Truly wasn’t. Even Henry was afraid of what she might do to his fabulous new family but Rachel had gone toe to toe with her and hadn’t even blinked. Regina had no idea how to deal with that.

“Eugene is your…husband?”

“Yeah. Well, not here, but back in the Enchanted Forest…” Rachel shrugged a shoulder and then shook herself. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to…vent at you. I came for Daniel.” Rachel nodded to herself. “Will you come and see him? Help him find his feet?”

“I would have thought –as a medical professional- that you would be more qualified than I for that.” Regina tried to put up some walls between them again but her efforts seem to careen off of Rachel harmlessly.

“I don’t take my work home with me.” Rachel tilted her head. “He needs you, Regina. You helped him before. You saved his life, I saw what that cost you. Why not help him now?”

“I can’t.” Regina burst out suddenly and wrung her hands together. She forced herself to stop and spun away pacing a moment before rounding on Rachel again. “I can’t. He doesn’t know me.”

“He knew you, didn’t he? Before.” Rachel frowned. “Before all…the pain.” Rachel resisted the strong urge to shudder at the memory of that pain. When Regina had sent it rocketing through her to break the connection. She’d remember it for the rest of her life.

“He doesn’t know me.” Regina hid in the words. She’d live in them if she had to.

“I see.”

“I think you might.” Regina admitted slowly and braced her hands on the counter top. She stared down at the sink for a moment and twisted her mouth. She looked up at Rachel to find the girl watching her still.

She shoved away from the counter and marched around it to find her purse. Digging inside, she lifted out a wedge of notes and handed them to Rachel.

“I cannot help him. I cannot know him but you…people expect kindness from doctors.” Regina watched Rachel look at the money like it was foreign. “This will at least get him some clothes and a room at Granny’s. I can give you more later.”

“Regina,” Rachel warily accepted the money like it might burn her, “people are already talking. The hospital is an ever churning rumour mill. The way you acted when you brought him in…people are beginning to suspect if not know that you care for Daniel.”

“So long as it is suspicion, it can easily be dealt with. No one will act on something so tenuous. Not while Charming still has power.” Regina nodded to herself like she was trying to comfort herself.

“There are others in this town, Regina. Others not so willing to toe Charming’s line.”

Regina lifted her head and something very stark and dangerous took up residence there for a moment. Her smile, when it flashed briefly, was the black eyed grin of a shark about to frenzy.

“Then you should make it known that Charming has the full backing of the Evil Queen. If anyone acts against him, or those associated with him, I shall tear this town apart brick-by-brick and rain them down upon the offending party.” Regina’s smile somehow managed to show all of her teeth. “From orbit.”

Rachel looked her in the eye, one of the few people willing to do so, and found the utter truth in those words.

It would seem the Dark One wasn’t the only one with the ability to see into the future.

“Right,” Rachel gulped, “I’ll drop that little titbit at the water cooler, shall I?”

“That would probably be best.”

“I’ll get Daniel the room. Some clothes too.” Rachel nodded, backing towards the door and more than a little concerned when Regina prowled after her.

“Lovely.” The Evil Queen, because that was who Rachel was suddenly with, smiled still. Approaching like a fox would a rabbit.

Rachel frowned. No. That wasn’t what you did with predators. She stopped, squared her shoulders and spoke firmly and calmly.

“Regina.”

Regina blinked and stopped.

She shook herself and shivered all over for a second before looking back at Rachel. She was silent a long moment and then nodded once.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. I’ll see myself out.” Rachel spun on her heel and walked to the front door, closing it quietly behind herself on the way out.

She made it all the way to her car before her legs gave out and she clutched the wheel while she hyperventilated.

She was _never_ doing that again!


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 – Unsettled**

 

“Well, here we are.” Rachel opened the door to the guest room and led Daniel inside. “It’s not much but…”

“It’s more than I had at home.” Daniel looked around the room and set the bags he carried onto the bed. “A cot in the servant’s quarters.” He looked up and studied the ceiling. “The roof leaked.”

“Oh.” Rachel shifted uneasily. “Well…these are the lights,” she toggled the switch on and off to show him, “there’s a little fridge if you want to pick up some food later. I can take you to the store if you want and the bathroom is through there.”

Daniel followed her directions as she pointed things out and he rolled his shoulders in his new clothes.

He’d never had new clothes before. Hand-me-down things, second hand, well repaired and well used. Like this inn. That part of it, at least, was familiar to him. Unlike near everything else in this town.

Rachel had spent the day with him, finally freeing him from the hospital after explaining to him that she had spoken to Regina and that she still wasn’t ready to see him. That had taken quite a while to convince him that he couldn’t go hunting through the town for her but Rachel had finally managed to get him to see it her way and had spent the morning distracting him.

They had bought him clothes first. More clothes than he had ever owned in his entire life combined. They were made of strange fabrics, stretchy ones some of them and so many different types and fantastical colours.

Daniel, having been somewhat alarmed by it all, had settled for simple. A pair of pale blue ‘jeans’, a white ‘tee shirt’ and a dark brown leather jacket. His shoes were a little fancy. Rachel had called them ‘cowboy boots’ but she had told them they would be suited for riding, despite the intricate tooling on the leather which he thought too fine for the task.

He had several bags filled with similar as well as ‘sweaters’ which seemed to be thick woollen tunics to be worn under jackets and –somewhat embarrassingly- underwear. Rachel hadn’t seemed embarrassed in the slightest and adding those things to the basket before bartering for them on Daniel’s behalf but –then again- she had seen him naked.

“I shall need work.” He said suddenly.

“Well, we can look into that. For now…”

“No.” Daniel spoke firmly. “Now. I will not live off charity. This is an inn, I must pay my way. Those were expensive, I owe you for them.”

“You don’t owe me for…”

“I do. The healing alone would be costly. Doctors were expensive in the Enchanted Forest. None of the hospital looked cheap either.”

Rachel didn’t really have an argument for that.

“You sure you’re up for it?”

“I feel fine.” Daniel supposed that was as apt a word as any. Physically, he felt fantastic. He felt like he could run for miles, for days on end, like he could lift carriages, but he ached to see Regina…he had promised her time.

For now.

“Alright.” Rachel held out a key to him and he accepted it warily. “We’ll go and see Eugene, my husband, he might know of something. He works in one of the bars here.”

“A bar?”

“A tavern.” Rachel corrected herself. “He’s one of the barmen. He –uh- serves the drinks.”

Daniel frowned a little but nodded anyway. He didn’t look too enamoured with working in a bar, but he did seem determined. He squared his shoulders and looked down at her.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” Rachel waved it away with a smile and stopped when his hand landed on her arm. He frowned down at her.

“Rachel, it is certainly not nothing to _me_. Thank you. I would be lost without help.”

“Well…it’s not as altruistic as you think.” Rachel shifted and then reached into her ‘purse’ rummaging for a second. She lifted out a paper envelope and hesitated a moment. “This is…yours.”

Daniel took the envelope and studied it, turning it over. It had no writing on it. Opening it, he reached in and removed the paper cuttings inside. He frowned.

“This is money here.”

“Yes.”

Daniel studied the paper money. There seemed to be a lot of it. Dollars, he remembered the name for the currency.

“If you want, I can show you how much each note is worth and…”

“Twenty dollars.” Daniel held up a twenty and showed it to her. “I can read and write and count.”

“Oh. That’s…”

“Unusual.” Daniel said dryly.

“Good.” Rachel corrected firmly. “I was going to say ‘good’.”

“Regina taught me.” Daniel studied the money in the envelope. “There has to be hundreds of dollars here.”

“Nearly a thousand.” Rachel agreed. That was after she’d paid the room for a month and bought him all his clothes too. It would seem that –if Regina could casually give this much money- the bank might bounce if she wrote cheques.

“Regina gave you this.” Daniel looked up suddenly. “Not that you haven’t been kind but…”

“She’s the only one who has reason to be so generous?” Rachel smiled and nodded. “Yeah, it’s from her. She thinks you might be in danger if it became widely known you’re important to her.”

“I haven’t been silent about my need to be close to her, nor for the reason behind it.” Daniel removed several notes from the pile and then turned, putting the envelope into a drawer. He stuffed the notes into one of his pockets and turned back to Rachel. “Shall we?”

“There’s no hurry.” Rachel backed out of the room when he moved to leave anyway, watching him lock it behind them.

“Perhaps not, but if I don’t do something to distract me, I’ll go mad.” Daniel rolled his shoulders in a shrug and pocketed the key too.

He’d never had reason to lock his door in the Enchanted Forest. Then again, he hadn’t had a lock or anything worth stealing either.

The only thing worth having had been Regina and it was him that had been stolen from her.

 

_**The Ugly Duckling...** _

 

“Hello, beautiful.” Eugene came out from behind the bar and dropped a kiss on Rachel’s lips when she turned her face up to his.

“Hello.” She smiled at him softly and then rocked back down onto the flat of her feet. “I have someone I want you to meet.”

“Oh?” Eugene lifted his head to look behind his wife and stilled when he saw a complete stranger.

A tall, well built, expensively dressed stranger. He glanced down at Rapunzel.

“Should I be worried?”

“Definitely not.” Rachel smirked, settling her arm around his waist and waving the man closer. “Eugene, this is Daniel. Daniel, Eugene.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Daniel held out his hand as he’d been told he had to do and hurriedly gentled his grip when Eugene winced at its strength.

Being in the tavern made him edgy. Places like this did not have fond memories for him. Too many nights waiting in the foul smell and worse company for his father to finish drinking his problems and his purse away. Too many wounds from getting between his father and whoever he had decided to pick a fight with. Taverns –to Daniel- were the stench of sick, the red colour of bloodied knuckles and the sound of slurred insults.

“You too.” Eugene shook his hand once and glanced down at Rachel.

“Daniel’s curse was particularly nasty.” Rachel hadn’t told Eugene much of what had gone on with the whole Whale-Meddling-With-Life-and-Death thing. She’d been so exhausted picking up the slack that the other doctor had left that she’d pretty much been falling into bed as soon as she got home the last few nights. “He’s just now recovered and is looking for a job. I told him you would help him.”

“You did?” Eugene looked down at his wife and resisted the urge to whine. “Rapunzel, we’re not exactly swimming in jobs here.”

“No, just women apparently.” Rachel smiled in a brittle manner. “I’m sure you can talk to your many, many, friends and find something. As a favour. To me. Your wife.”

Eugene dropped his arm from around her shoulders and pursed his lips.

“I was cursed. We all were.”

“I know.” Rachel smiled sweetly. “While you do that, we’re going to sit over there, order some lunch.”

“Great.” Eugene eyeballed Daniel a little and Daniel just blinked in return. Obviously not in on the joke.

“Bring us something nice.” Rachel went up on her tiptoes, kissed him on the cheek and then turned to lead Daniel across the bar to one of the booths on the other side.

Daniel shrugged his jacket from his shoulders and sat uneasily.

He hated taverns. He was disappointed, in this strange world that was so different from the Enchanted Forest, that some things remained the same.

The smell of alcohol and the great unwashed. Loud chatter, louder, lewder insults. Smoke heavy in the air and…Daniel’s dark thoughts stalled when three small heads each haloed by a riot of red curls appeared over the top of the table.

“Hello, boys.” Rachel smiled and all three of the young boys grinned. “What have you done this time?”

The three boys, so young they had to stand on their tiptoes to see over the top of the table, held up a small black nozzle. They had a mixture of gleeful pride and sheepishness on their faces.

“Come on then.” Rachel rolled her eyes, though a smile teased her mouth.

Giggling riotously, the three boys ducked under the table, clambered over Daniel’s legs and up onto the bench curving around the back of the booth, ducked behind the table.

“Daniel, this is Harris, Hubert and Hamish Dunbroch.” Rachel pointed to each apparently identical boy in turn.

Harris, at least the one Rachel had told him was Harris, held out the black nozzle to Daniel.

“What is it?” Daniel turned it over in his hands. It was made of that black ‘plastic’ material and felt faintly sticky.

“I do believe it’s one of the nozzles from the drink dispenser. Probably the one that keeps it from spraying in all directions.” Rachel turned to look over at the bar. “If I’m not very much mistaken, then it probably belongs on the hose that Eugene’s about to use right now.”

Daniel looked over and saw Eugene laughing with one of the patrons, scooping ice into a glass filled with an amber shot of something else. He picked up the soda hose, his attention still fixed on the woman he was chatting to, and he depressed the button for the soda.

It went _everywhere_.

On the bar, on the customer, splashing back onto Eugene, even onto the floor. The only place it didn’t appear to get was in the glass itself.

Eugene staggered back, spluttering and mopping at his face, his eyes unerringly going to Rachel’s table and the barest hint of red curls he could see ducked down behind it.

“ _BOYS_!”

All three of the triplets ducked down further at that single word issuing from not too far away.

Daniel twisted to see a stately woman, tall, with long brown hair, a single streak greying at her temple, marching towards them. She wore a long green skirt and a cream sweater. Simple clothes, but she moved with the unmistakable bearing of a queen.

“What have I told you about being behind the bar?” The woman loomed over the table, hands planted on her hips and skirts swishing. Her accent was strange. She noticed Rachel belatedly and her entire demeanour softening. “Hello, Rapunzel, how are you, dear?”

“Just fine, Eleanor, thank you.” Rachel nodded even as Eleanor snapped her fingers and pointed imperiously at the floor at her feet.

The triplets, shoulders slumped in dejection, clambered under the table and meekly stood at her heels. The wicked grins they sent each other’s way belied their apparent remorse though.

“This is Daniel. A friend of mine.” Rachel nodded in Daniel’s direction.

“It’s good to meet you, Lady Eleanor.” Daniel rose to his feet, accepting her hand and bending low to her knuckles. He didn’t kiss them, as that would be above his station but it pleased Eleanor just the same.

“Oh, such manners.” Eleanor grinned at him. “Boys, take note.” She told her sons sharply.

Harris, Hubert and Hamish all looked up, studying Daniel owlishly and he managed a lopsided smirk.

“Please, sit, sit.” Eleanor waved him back down to his seat and gave in when Rachel scooted around the booth to offer her a space too. Eleanor sat and the three boys scurried back under the table to sit between Daniel and Rachel again. “So, Daniel, tell us a little about yerself.” Eleanor smiled softly at him and it was easy to see that –while she could be fierce- she loved her children dearly.

“Not much to tell really, I was a stable boy in the Enchanted Forest and only recently arrived in Storybrooke.” Daniel wisely decided to skirt all mention of Regina or his relationship with her.

“Really? That’s unusual.” Eleanor laughed. “Well, I suppose that’s a relative term here.”

“Eleanor, we were actually here to beg a job for Daniel. He needs work.” Rachel deftly steered the conversation to safer subjects.

“Work you say,” Eleanor eyed Daniel shrewdly, “ye were a stable lad?”

“Yes, I cared for the horses and the stables in…a sizeable estate.” Daniel was hesitant to even mention the name Miller in case this sharp woman made the connection. He wasn’t ashamed of Regina or his connection to her, but he needed a job.

“I take it you don’t have any cursed memories? No skills that you picked up in your time here?”

“I can already read and write if that’s what you’re asking.” Daniel smiled. “I was taught by my masters in the Enchanted Forest.”

“Well, that’ll stand ye in good stead.” Eleanor’s brows rose. “I can certainly ask around for ye. We’ll find you something. Don’t you worry.” Eleanor bestowed a beaming smile on him.

“Thank you.”

“Beer.” A wet Eugene arrived at the table and clapped a tankard down in front of Daniel. “White wine, club soda and chocolate milk.” Eugene put drinks in front of Eleanor, Rachel and the boys respectively. He glowered at them and held out his hand.

A black nozzle was meekly handed over.

“Lunch and retribution to follow.” Eugene pointed two fingers at his eyes and then swivelled his hand to indicate the boys too. The boys giggled and Eugene smirked a little before turning to go back to the bar and maybe wring his tee shirt out.

“He is very good with children.” Eleanor said and Rachel groaned. “I’m just saying, you don’t have a curse to keep you from getting older!” Eleanor professed her innocence. “Might be an idea to have a few of your own.”

“I’m twenty nine, I’m not dead yet.” Rachel defended herself.

“What about you, Daniel? Married? Children?”

“Engaged.” Daniel smiled. “We hoped to have a house full.”

“Wonderful, you must bring your lady to see us.” Eleanor beamed at him and Daniel smiled easily in return.

He had no intention of doing so, of course. Firstly because he had to convince Regina to _talk_ to him before he could take her anywhere and, secondly, he had the impression that she wouldn’t be entirely welcome there anyway.

Rachel smirked but hid it in her drink.

Daniel lifted his own drink, prepared to try the beer at least, and froze when the meaty sound of a fist meeting face clapped out. Two men, who had been bickering loudly, had finally wound up to fisticuffs. The larger of the two had taken a right to the chin and staggered back. Right for their table on Eleanor and Rachel’s side.

Daniel lunged from his seat and caught the man, deflecting him away to tumble onto the floor.

“Hey!” The first man glared at Daniel. “What you think you’re doing?”

“Stopping two idiots from hurting the ladies.” Daniel squared his shoulders.

“Bastard!” The man on the floor sat up in a hurry and swung for Daniel’s stomach.

 Daniel hopped back out of range and fought down a growl. Every time. _Every_ damn time he ever came into a tavern, it ended in a fight. He didn’t even have his drunkard father to blame for this one.

The first man lunged for Daniel at the same time as the other regained his feet. Apparently they were more interested in beating the stuffing out of Daniel rather than each other.

Still, they were clumsy, they were drunk, and Daniel didn’t have the patience to humour them. He grabbed them both by the scruff in a hand each. He hauled them close, intending to drag them up onto their toes and his brows raised in surprise when both men were suddenly over his head, feet kicking helplessly above the ground.

Looking at his arms, as if to check it was him that was doing it, Daniel saw the muscles there bunched effortlessly under the weight of two full grown men. He glanced down at the floor and saw their toes swinging several inches above it. He hadn’t realised, hadn’t even noticed, their weight. He should have struggled to deal with one of them, even as good a brawler as he’d had to be, but he held both of them without any hassle at all.

They still struggled though.

Daniel smacked their skulls together and then dropped both stunned men to the floor. He studied his hands, flexing his fingers and then looked up at Eleanor and Rachel. The bar had gone completely silent.

He looked about himself and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“That’s new.” He confessed.

“It certainly is.” Eleanor grinned and rose to her feet. Stepping over the legs of one of the fallen men. “How would you like to be a splatter?”

“A what?” Rachel and Daniel said at the same time.

“It’s like a bouncer but more forceful.” Eleanor grinned. She waved at the two men that Daniel stood over. “That was well done, I could do with more of that to prevent damage to the furniture if nothing else.”

“Hours and wage?” Rachel sipped from her drink to steady herself.

She’d suspected, because of him snapping his manacle, but to see it right in front of her…it was a pity she didn’t think Daniel would submit to more tests. She wondered what his upper limit was.

“Thursday to Sunday,” Eleanor shrugged, “eight dollars an hour.”

“Ten and free dinners when he works here.”

“Nine and free drinks as well as dinners.”

“Done.” Rachel smiled and nodded to Daniel. “Where should he put the trash?”

“Oh, just toss them outside. I’m sure my dearest husband will let them back in by the time they’ve come too.”

Daniel, a little mystified as to what had just happened and how brawling had gotten him a job, nodded and dragged the two insensate men to the door.

He was strong. It should worry him. He should be concerned as to what else had changed in him but, all he could think, was that Regina wouldn’t have the excuse of worrying that people could hurt him.

He was more than capable of defending himself.

 

_**The Guesthouse...** _

 

Daniel waved to Rachel and Eugene as they drove off and turned to head back into the guest house.

He had a bundle of tee shirts under his arm with the Ugly Duckling logo on them, his uniform for working as a splatter and a bag of books and some food that they’d picked up while at the ‘supermarket’.

Daniel had been tempted to buy a dictionary, just to catch up with all the words, but had wanted to buy a book on electronics and one on cars too. Rachel had also recommended a compendium of something called the National Geographic. Apparently it would cover a lot about this world for him.

Daniel pushed into the guesthouse and stilled when he found someone watching him.

“Hello.”

“You’d be Daniel then?”

“Yes.” Daniel studied the older woman in front of him. She must be Granny then. He juggled his things and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Granny.” She nodded and shook his hand with a firm grip. “Rachel tells me you’re staying with us until you can find somewhere of your own.”

Until he could convince Regina to take him back.

“Yes.” Daniel nodded and smiled.

“She tells me that you’re Regina’s man too.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Daniel’s smile faded and he studied the older woman carefully.

“Rachel only told me because the queen and I have an alliance.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Everyone else –her own son even- thinks she’s hell on earth. Why are you allied with her when no one else is?”

Granny mulled him over. He was smart. Well, she supposed Regina –who didn’t exactly suffer anyone gladly- would have almost no tolerance for fools.

“She has her uses.” Granny shrugged a shoulder. “Better to walk behind her than cross her path.”

“She is not a thing.” Daniel’s jaw clenched. “Don’t treat her like one.”

“It’s nothing worse than she’s done to all of us.” Granny folded her arms over her chest, speaking in a warning tone.

“I don’t care. None of you know anything about her.” Daniel hefted his bag and decided he’d rather not have this conversation.

How was he going to stand it? How was he going to be able to stand by and say nothing if people insisted on vilifying the woman he loved?

“It could be argued that we know enough.”

“Well, I’m telling you that you _don’t_.” Daniel inhaled a deep breath to calm himself. “She’s done horrible things, I’ve been told about them all, but I’m clever enough to know that can’t be the whole story. The woman I knew wouldn’t turn into the monster she showed you without a damn good reason. ‘Evil’ is not a reason. It’s what she did, not what she is.”

Granny rocked back on her heels and studied the man before her.

She inhaled a deep breath and studied his scent just as carefully. Hot damn, it was true.

The boy loved her. Truly loved her.

Granny recognised the scent that usually followed Charming and Snow like smog in a city.

It was different, belonging to different people as it did, but similar enough for Granny to recognise the base notes.

She thought about what she had seen in Regina days previously. About the queen on borrowed time.

She should suffer. She really should. She should be punished for what she’d done but…Granny was beginning to think that the punishment had come long before the crimes. There wasn’t really anything that could be done to Regina that hadn’t already happened.

“You’re sure you’re right?” She said to Daniel instead.

“I know I am.”

“Despite everything you’ve heard.”

“The woman I…knew is still in there. I know it. I wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.”

Granny nodded slowly and twisted her mouth. This was probably a bad idea…but it wasn’t like Regina would have long to regret it.

“Have you seen her yet?”

“No.” Daniel’s shoulders slumped a little and Granny smirked.

“Would you like to?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 – And Finally They Meet**

 

Regina lifted her head at the knock of the door.

Hmm, angry mob or pleading doctor? Hell, it might even be a werewolf trying to feed her to the Blue Faerie.

Regina winced when she pushed off the couch and to her feet. She grimaced when her muscles twinged and her joints clicked. She had spent most of the day doing as little as possible. She still felt drained and weak, despite having been healed by Rapunzel’s hair. The burst of energy that had granted her had been false. She’d furiously cleaned yesterday in order to distract herself and had paid bitterly for it this morning.

The door was hammered again and Regina growled. If they had damaged the paintwork, they were going to get a piece of her mind. A nasty piece.

She fumbled the key into the lock, swung the door open, her mouth already open to tell them to leave her the hell alone and the words died a hoarse croak in her throat.

Daniel.

“Regina!”

His smile nearly undid her. He looked so happy to see her. So overjoyed. He looked as happy as she had felt when she had brought him back.

He took a step forward and the fear reared its head. She slammed the door shut, jamming the key around in the lock and falling against it.

“Regina!” Daniel knocked on the door again. Calling through it to her. “Regina, please, open the door.”

Regina’s chest heaved, her eyes wide in shock and fear and so many other emotions she couldn’t put them all together. She felt her legs buckle and she slid slowly down the door, crumpling to the floor.

She couldn’t. She just _couldn’t_.

“Regina, I know you’re scared, but you need to talk to me.”

Regina clapped her hand over her mouth to choke back the sob. She wasn’t strong enough for this. She was so weak. She hurt all over. Exhaustion plagued her. She felt her magic roil, flipping her stomach over and over.

“Please?”

Regina squeezed her eyes shut and fisted her hands in her hair.

“Henry came to see me.”

Regina’s shoulders sagged. Of course he had.

“He’s a wonderful boy, Regina. Clever and confident. A little confused, but I can sympathise with that.” He had lowered himself to a crouch. He knew she was sitting on the floor. Of course he knew. “We talked about you. He wanted to know about you.”

Regina pressed her lips together. Henry would have told him everything. He’d have read that damn book cover to cover, extolling her every sin…and it didn’t even cover half of them.

“He gave me the book to read.” Daniel’s voice changed as he sat down on the porch, leaning against the door.

He was so close. So close. All she had to do was open the door and…and…and watch his face fall when he realised what she was now. She wasn’t that girl, not the girl he had fallen in love with, not anymore.

“We read it together. For every story he told me about the Evil Queen, I told him one about you. About how we first met, how we fell in love, how you saved Snow’s life…about how I died.”

Regina pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She would not cry. She was sick of crying. All she ever seemed to do was fucking cry.

“I died loving you, Regina. I died for loving you. I know what that cost you. I know how much it hurt you.” He was quiet a moment. “Maybe I’m the only one that does. I’m the only one that knew you then, knew you before Cora broke you, the only one that knew the real you. All everyone else sees is…the mask.”

Regina snorted. He was wrong.

The Evil Queen couldn’t have come about unless she was there to begin with. Regina was bad, she always had been. Daniel had brought out the good in her, so had Henry, but they had both ended up leaving her. Regina was the mask, not the Evil Queen.

“Don’t dismiss me.” Daniel warned her. “I know you think I’m wrong, but I’m not. Open the door, Regina. Let me in and I’ll prove it to you.”

Regina hugged her knees.

“Please?”

Regina huddled even smaller into herself if it was at all possible.

“Regina, I love you. Please let me in.”

Regina leapt up suddenly. She tunnelled her fingers through her hair, pacing back and forth. She scrambled frantically for strength. For anger. Something to keep her from breaking down.

“Go away!” She rounded on the door suddenly. “You’re not welcome here!” Her chest heaved and she weaved under the effort it had taken her to summon the words.

“Regina…”

“No!” Regina thumped the door with her fist. “Go away!”

“I love you. Let me in.”

“You can’t.” Regina paced back and forth, wringing her hands. “Go away, Daniel!”

She paced some more and slowly lifted her head after a moment.

“Daniel?”

 

_**Meanwhile…** _

 

Daniel slipped around the side of the huge white house, looking for a way in.

Yeah, sure, he was just going to leave now that all that separated them was a couple of measly doors and walls. He smirked when he came across the patio and a set of double windowed doors. He snapped the lock on the back door with minimal effort and pushed it open. The hinges swung with a well-oiled silence and he smirked. Trust her to have everything running smoothly.

He snuck through the kitchen, admiring the house. It was all smooth lines and cream walls. Not what they had talked about having, but it was nice. Saved from being cold by the bowls of red apples and the various nods to there having been a child in the house at one point.

Henry, the boy who had pestered Daniel at the hospital. Her son who had abandoned her.

Daniel’s sharp ears pricked at the sound of clipping footsteps. Even after decades, murder, death and rebirth, he’d recognise her footfalls anywhere.

He slinked into the hallway and just stopped when he saw her. She was pacing, prowling back and forth in the hallway. She had her hands on her hips and her head down, watching her steps.

She was beautiful. She had matured into a stunning woman, the innocence of her youth gone but she had changed from fresh faced and pretty to a sultry and mature female of striking presence. It was easy to see that she had once been a queen, despite her wishes against it, she commanded every room she occupied.

“Oh hell.” She broke suddenly and dashed for the door, which Daniel thought was inadvisable in those shoes.

She threw it open, tensing when she saw the porch empty and finally sagging. Her shoulders slumped and a slow breath rushed from her.

Daniel smirked.

“I knew you still loved me.”

Regina gasped and whirled, her hand lifting to do who knew what and a look of utter shock painting her features.

“What are you doing here?”

Had Daniel not been against such a thing, he’d have been impressed by how quickly she commanded herself. She hauled her regal mask up almost instantly, quashing her surprise and straightening her posture, meeting him head on.

“You have no right to be here. Get out.”

“No.” Daniel planted his feet and stared her down.

“This is breaking and entering. Against the law in this land. You will be arrested.”

“In the Evil Queen’s house? I doubt the Charming sheriff will do that. I sense a bit of bias there.” Daniel shrugged his shoulder and couldn’t help himself.

He drank in the sight of her, even as she angrily advanced on him as if she intended to bodily throw him out the door. She stopped short of grabbing him by the arm and swept hers out towards the still open door instead.

“Get out. You’re not welcome here.”

Daniel shrugged his shoulders and started for the front door, not missing the stricken flash of emotion in her eyes when he did so. The anger made a reappearance when he gripped the door with one hand and slammed it shut with a flick of his wrist and a boom of sound.

He turned and leaned against it, folding his arms over his chest. He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Get. Out.” She advanced on him again, her hands flexing at her sides and Daniel leaned down so they were at eye level.

“No.”

“It’s my house. You can’t be here. Get out.”

“No.”

“Why not?” She demanded between gritted teeth.

“Because you can’t avoid me forever.” He spoke with an infuriating calm. “Not if you ever want to go outside again.”

“I’m hardly welcome out there.” She shrugged a shoulder.

“It makes no difference. I’m not going. I’m not your servant anymore. I don’t have to do what you tell me.”

“You were never my servant and well you know it.” She snapped at him, pacing back up the steps to the main floor of the house. Her heels clicking on the polished stone floor. “Get out.”

“Why should I obey you? Because you’re the queen? The mayor?”

“Pick whichever grants your unflinching obedience.” She growled and he smirked when he realised he found it attractive.

“I’m sensing a particularly circular trend to this conversation.” Daniel confided in her, he pushed away from the door and approached her cautiously. She had the same look in her eye of a flighty mare prepared to shy and bolt at the least provocation.

“We can’t do this.” She backed away from him but he followed her, speaking in that low and steady voice.

“Do what? We’re just talking.”

“You can’t be close to me. It makes you a target.”

“I can look out for myself.” Daniel shrugged on a smile and very real rage flashed in her eyes then.

“What? Like you did when my mother murdered you? Ripped out your heart right in front of me? Like _that_ , Daniel?”

“Things have changed.” Daniel’s voice was firm.

He knew she was angry at him for leaving her. Then guilty that she felt that way. Horrified at the memory of his death and broken by the feeling that it had somehow been her fault. He knew it all.

“Yes,” she continued blithely, hauling on a new face, the callus and blasé one, “now you have one of my hearts. From my vault. One of the hundreds I’ve collected over the years. I have so many, such pretty little things, perhaps I should have labelled them.” She lifted a hand and tapped her finger against her full lips. “At least that way you might know whose heart you had because I certainly don’t! I’ve taken too many to count!” Her voice sharpened with her anger and Daniel accepted it.

 “Regina…”

“They’re incredibly powerful, you know.” She slipped back into the congenial tone, civilised and polite once more. Making it clear she had plenty of practice hiding such rage. “One of them –just one- fuelled this entire curse. Built an entire town from nothing, stole an entire _world_ full of people and filled their heads with dreamlike memories. Thousands of people and hundreds of artefacts from the Enchanted Forest all brought to this world by ONE heart…my father’s heart.” Regina shrugged her shoulders with a small smile, though her eyes were screaming, begging him to stop this. “It was heavier than I expected. When I ripped it from his chest. You know, the same way my mother took yours.”  

“Regina, stop.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, what a poor host I’m being. Are you tired, do you need to lie down? Perhaps I’ll whip up a little something to help you sleep. How about a nice enchanted apple?” Regina clapped her hands together once and smiled brightly, nodding at him. “I’m good at those. Experience earned through sending Snow White into a sleeping curse. A haunting place filled with her deepest regrets. You remember Snow, don’t you? Sweet little girl, bit empty in the head but –as her mother by marriage- I think I was actually supposed to _look after her_ rather than destroy and entire realm trying to murder her!”

“Regina…” Daniel tried again, tried to take her by the shoulders and ground her but she shot backwards, dancing away on those ridiculous shoes of hers.

She held her hands up as if to ward him off. Like she was contagious. Toxic.

“Oh no, dearest Daniel, you don’t want to get too close. I’m a terrible lover. I use and loose men like you read about –hah! Literally.” She shook her head, grinning inanely and wiping the tear from her cheek as if it was part of her amusement. “Like Sidney, the man I manipulated into killing my husband. Tricked into murder and then cursed into a mirror. Ooooh, or maybe Graham. Would you prefer that? To have your heart taken but be left alive, a slave to my every whim so I could use you again and again and AGAIN…”

Daniel cut her off when he thought she was about to break.

“Like you were used?”

The sob seemed to catch Regina completely by surprise and she convulsed with it, her arms catching herself around the middle. Daniel caught her by the waist when he thought she was going to just crumple to the floor.

“Should I hold you?” His voice was quiet. He knew she’d hear him though. Her pain, her tears, were silent. “Like you held your son when he needed it? Should I take your pain? Like you took mine? Shall I kiss you –with true love- as you did me?”

She sobbed again, a sound torn from her throat and chest and right out of her heart.

“A love you so obviously still feel or I wouldn’t be standing here. A love I feel too and will feel forever and years beyond that. No matter who or what you are, no matter how far apart we are, I will love you. It is a love that never died, Regina, even when I did.”

She whimpered at that and he pulled her closer, tucking her against his chest. He held her tightly, trying to get her to understand that he wouldn’t ever leave her again.

“Just stop, love. Stop hurting yourself and let me in. Let me love you.”

“You,” she choked on her tears against his chest, still refusing to hold him in return, “you don’t even know me.”

“Of course I do. You’re Regina. You’re mine.”

“You can’t know me!” She shoved him away, tears streaming down her face but she was still beautiful. “How can you say that? The girl you loved, that Regina is GONE! She died when you did. If you _ever_ loved me, if you really do care for me, then go now and _never_ come back. Mourn the loss of your love, of that girl of yours because she’s just not here anymore!”

“Yes she is!” Daniel seized her by the shoulders and hauled her close so his eyes bored into hers. “She’s in there, screaming for help. You wouldn’t be killing yourself over what you’d done if she wasn’t. I helped you before, when we were young and before the world got to us and –by the gods- I shall help you again in this new world. I didn’t come all the way back from the dead to let you go again.”

“That’s sweet,” she seemed unmoved, unwilling or unable to let herself hope, “but this is the ‘real’ world and happy endings are in such short supply. I am not that girl anymore.”

“You could be.”

“No.” Regina shook her head. “I couldn’t. The magic has me, Daniel, just like it had my mother and it’s going to drag me right to my grave and…that’s okay. It’s the end of the road,” she reached up and cupped his cheek, smiling like the Regina he had known once upon a time, “I brought you back. You can live on…my last good deed.”

“What are you talking about? What’s happened?” Panic seized him. She talked like the hangman was at her shoulder. What did she know?

Something flickered in her gaze. Barely realised –a half formed thought tidied away before he could see it. Her sad smile never faltered.

“The mob, sweetheart. Henry bargained for my life but it won’t last forever. I’m on borrowed time and everyone knows it.”

“No. I won’t let them.”

“You can’t stop an entire town, dear.”

“Yes I can. I will protect you.”

“Oh, like you did before?” Her hand dropped from his face. “Was that before or after you died in my arms and shattered my soul? I can’t quite recall.”

Daniel jerked back as if slapped and she smirked at him.

“I probably should have mentioned that I’m cruel now. It’s part of the whole Evil thing I’ve got going on.” She waved her hands to encompass everything around her. She sobered after a moment. “Evil means that I cannot love, Daniel. If you’re stupid enough to stay with me than that just means that you’ll learn to hate me too and…I don’t think I can take that. I can handle the rest of it. The rest of the whole WORLD can hate me and that’s just dandy but, if you did, I do believe it would destroy my very soul.” Regina spoke with a calm business-like tone. “So, go. Being evil means I’m selfish now too and I just can’t stand the thought of you…despising me like everyone else does. Consider it a last request.”

It was the acceptance that did it. The calm resignation towards her ill fate that she had.

His Regina wasn’t like that. Not the girl he remembered and he knew –in his very bones he knew- that she was still in there. Still there and surrounded by so much more. This fierce, strong, terrifying woman who felt with everything she had. Who loved so well that she didn’t know how to stop and she was tired, exhausted. She wanted to give up and she couldn’t. Not when he had found her again. Not now that they had a chance at being together.

Daniel didn’t want a happy ending. He’d had enough of endings. He’d take a hopeful beginning and an uncertain future over a happy ending any day.

“ _ENOUGH_!” He surprised even himself with the depth of that bellow and she actually hopped back a step from him. “You are NOT going to die. I will not allow it!” Daniel pointed at her viciously but he wasn’t really angry at her.

He was angry with himself for leaving her. He should have known not to trust Cora. He hadn’t loved her blindly, helplessly, the way Regina had. Whenever he had looked into that old bitch’s eyes he’d seen a gaping chasm of nothing looking right back at him. She was good, he’d give her that, but he should have been better. Because he’d been a stupid idealistic boy, she’d killed him and shattered the love of his life.

Never again.

“I’ll destroy anyone who tries to harm you.” The words seethed from him on a growl and Regina blinked at him, fooled for a moment before she shook her head and smiled at him.

“No you won’t.” She shrugged. “You’re too kind. Too gentle. You’d never hurt anyone.”

“That was before. This is now.” He looked her in the eye and willed her to see the truth. “Do you think dying didn’t change me? Do you think there isn’t darkness in me too?”

Regina opened her mouth to tell him no. She didn’t but he sliced his hand through the air and startled her into silence.

“If your mother wasn’t already dead and stood before me now, she’d be in bloodied pieces all over this house. If I get half a chance I’ll make a gift to you of Rumplestiltskin’s head. I could desecrate Leopold’s mouldering corpse for taking the woman who was to be MY wife!” The rage gaped wide in him, sucking in every other feeling and feeding off it. Growing fat and hungry for more.

This was what it was like. This was being a man and feeling the helpless rage in the face of life itself taking its toll on his loved ones. Knowing that his loved one had paid more than most.

“Did you really think that you were the only one who would be broken without our love? Did you honestly believe that you loved me so much more than I did you?”

“You didn’t break!” Regina couldn’t stand this pouring out of him.

All this pain and rage that she had made him vulnerable to by bringing him back to life. Her selfishness had caused him this agony. She had thought she’d managed to take the pain but she’d just supplanted it with another.

“If it had been me that had died, if I had lain in your arms and breathed my last, YOU would have moved on! There isn’t anything inherently _wrong_ with you. You wouldn’t have cursed a whole damn world because you couldn’t stand the thought of being in it without me there.”

Daniel sagged suddenly, his shoulders slumping and he stared at his hands.

“No.” He agreed softly, examining his hands like he was seeing them for the first time and then clenching them into white knuckled fists. When he looked up at her again, his eyes were on fire. “Regina, without you, I’d have _burned_ it.”

“What?” Regina actually took a step back from him but he was tired of her fleeing from him, from what she felt for him, so he followed her, backing her up against the wall.

“You have the greatest capacity to love. Whatever you do, you do with every fibre of your being and every spark in your soul. You love so intensely it’s like basking in sunlight to have it shone on me and –when you feel pain- that sun burns you just as fiercely. How could I not love you with everything I have? How could I not love absolutely everything about you? Even the things that I shouldn’t even like? To do anything less –anything less than give you everything I have- would be unworthy.”

He reached out gently, taking her hands in his and searching her face. Past all the masks she wore, one on top of the other, peeling them back until he got to the core of her and begging her to be as truthful with herself as she wanted to be to him.

“Am I not worthy?”

“Of course you are. I didn’t say…”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“Me.” She searched his face for understanding praying she both would and wouldn’t find it. “My past.”

“Is exactly that, you can’t do anything but accept it and try and move on. With me. Build a future with me, Regina. We can’t have the life we wanted but that isn’t to say we can’t have a damn good life. We can be happy.”

“Any happiness I have is torn away. It’s always been that way.”

“Not anymore. Not with me here.”

“Why are you so sure you can protect me?”

“I’m stronger now.” He knew she didn’t realise the full extent of what he meant but –if she only gave him a chance- he’d spend the rest of their lives showing her.

“Not stronger than me, nor Rumplestiltskin or an entire town full of angry villagers complete with social networking and pitchforks.” She waved her hand wildly.

“Try me.” He bared his teeth. “I’ll shuck them like prawns and eat them raw.”

Regina went pale, paler than she already was, and pulled her hands from him. She stepped back, her eyes going wide.

“What did you say?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper and Daniel gentled his smile, shrugging.

“I didn’t really mean it, Regina.” He smirked to let her know he really was joking. “I probably couldn’t eat them all in one sitting.”

“ _No_.” The word left her on a rushed breath of horror and Daniel was left grasping at purple smoke when she disappeared.

Regina reappeared across town and deep within the catacombs of her vault. She threw open the door to the inner sanctum and tore open the closet with the hearts still stored there. She could see the little glimmers of pink light peeking out through the gaps in the drawers and began yanking them open.

She was right, she really should have labelled them. Gods damn her and her psychopathic need for power, for trophies.

Regina hauled the drawers out, one after the other, they clattered to the floor, hearts plinking like glass balls and rolling awkwardly away. She knew none of them would shatter, it took a particular kind of intent to crush a heart. You had to really _mean_ it.

She was looking for the odd one out. She found several empty drawers, Whale must have taken more than one heart for his attempts, but that wasn’t really what she as looking for. She was looking for one particular heart and her fingers hesitated when she reached drawer with the ivory box inside. The reinforced one. It was bigger than the rest and she could sense, even through the wood and bone surrounding it, that what she was looking for was right there…or rather, that what was missing wasn’t there at all.  

She pulled the drawer, tugging carefully like the contents might attack her at any moment. She pulled it right out, as if the heart inside might have crammed itself into a corner or something as equally foolish.

Regina stood, her hands shaking violently, the box shuddering between her palms and her legs folded beneath her. She sank to the floor. The box tumbled from her lap and she covered her mouth with her hand, trying to convince herself that she must be mistaken. That the Curse had been blessed with the sense not to bring an object of such terrifying power with her even if she hadn’t…but she knew that was not the case.

Regina tilted forward and her head thudded against the cabinet of hearts. She could feel them pulsing in a steady throb, radiating magic onto her in a steady drumming of guilt.

So many. So many. She hadn’t been lying when she had said that she didn’t remember who they all belonged to but she remembered this one.

Of _course_ Whale would take the biggest heart. He’d want the best chance of success and the biggest would more than likely mean the strongest wouldn’t it?

Typical doctor, governed more by logic than sense.

Still, she understood his reasoning…

…but why, oh why, oh _why_ , had he had to take Hyde’s?


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 – Alliances**

 

David nibbled on a piece of cheese and slung his dishcloth over his shoulder as he threw open the door, bracing himself to deal with the latest complaint about post-curse life.

“Regina?!” David nearly choked on the chunk of cheese and recovered himself as quickly as he was able.

“It’s easy to see why Snow didn’t name you Graceful.” Regina drawled at him and nimbly stepped around him and into the apartment before he could slam the door on her face.

“Henry’s not here.”

“I should hope not at this time of the day. He should be in school.”

“That he should.” David glared at the door, like it was at fault for his unwelcome guest. He flicked it closed and rounded on her. He stalled when he saw her. Properly saw her.

She had always been small. It was something he only knew academically because she always seemed to be so much larger when she was there inflicting her presence on him, but now she looked it. She looked thin and drawn and very nearly frail. She paced about the apartment, stalking and taking in the décor, with the nervous energy of a long tailed cat at a rocking chair convention.

He considered her a long moment and then sighed. See, this was the thing about being good; it got you coming as well as going.

“I was about to eat, do you want some?” He made his way back to the pan on the hob and tried to muscle down his flinch when she just appeared at his side. Really, did she have a stealth mode for those heels of hers?

“How charming.” She leaned around his arm and inspected the contents of the pan with a look of almost morbid fascination on her face. Like she had discovered a new species of mould and it was currently on the bottom of her shoe. “And what is this supposed to be?”

“Omelette.” David shoogled the pan and frowned when the omelette refused to cooperate. “it’s a work in progress.”

“It’s a health hazard is what it is.” Regina muttered and stepped bodily into him.

David tried not to squeak as she bumped him out of her way with a knock of her hip. Really? _REALLY?!_ He was six two, she was five and a titch and had to weigh half of what he did when she was soaking wet!

“Sit down before you hurt yourself.” Regina ordered him coolly and picked up the pan, opening the trashcan with a tap of her foot on the pedal and upending his lunch into it.

“Hey!”

“Sit.” Regina cast a dark look at him and David found his legs folding under him and was eternally grateful that there was a stool under his ass or he would have been flat on the floor.

“Good.” Regina told him archly and set the pan back onto the heat, shrugging her jacket from her shoulders and neatly deposited it over David’s head, trusting that even he would know what to do with it. She rolled back her shirt sleeves and took a step back from the cabinets, eyeing them.

“Snow is right handed…prefers tea…quick and easy over prepared…” Regina held her hand up waving it in front of the cabinets as if dousing for something and then snapped her fingers. “Bowls.” She predicted and opened the cupboard, smirking when she found herself correct.

“That trick would be more impressive if you hadn’t broken in here and rifled through the place before.”

“What is impressive is you having survived for all those years in the Enchanted Forest with a price on your _empty_ head.” Regina told him archly. “If I was ever here, it certainly would not have been to rifle and you can’t prove any of that anyway. Cutlery.” Regina snapped open a drawer and scowled, clapping it closed and opening the next one along.

David tensed when she pulled out a knife but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

She continued to move about the kitchen, dropping butter into the pan, mixing the eggs and milk in a separate bowl rather than in the pan, looting the fridge for leftovers to bulk up the omelette and slicing everything with a somewhat chilling skill.

David was so busy watching her and trying not to drool at the delicious scents wafting his way that he very nearly forgot to hate her for a few moments. He scowled when he realised he should be watching for slight of hand and skull marked bottles adding special seasoning to his dinner.

“Why are you here?”

“I have pledged my allegiance to you and now I need something in return.”

“Pledged your…what?!” David stood and –with a single dark look sent his way- realised that manners cost nothing and a lack of manners might cost him a great deal. He sat down again and dredged up some courtly manner from somewhere. “Regina…you allied yourself with me?”

“Would you rather the alternative?” Regina let out a huff of effort and clunked the bowl of beaten eggs down on the counter. She leaned there a little heavier than she should have and David watched her intently.

She really _was_ pale.

She was good with makeup, but he could see the evidence of the full on luggage set she had under her eyes and her cheekbones stood out giving her an almost gaunt appearance.

“No, but…what difference does it make? Who would know? I’m not giving you anything for this supposed allegiance when you still haven’t offered help to me for bringing Emma and Snow back.”

Regina rolled her eyes and looked down at the bowl again. As if pondering if she was up to the task of lifting it.

“It’s all over the town.” Regina told him while she calculated. “I’m your ally. Everybody knows.”

“Whuh…how could it be all over the town if even I didn’t know?!”

“I’m sure entire libraries can and have been filled with things you don’t know, dear.” Regina favoured him with a narrow eyed smile. “It’s all over town because I wanted it that way. Have you not noticed a dramatic decrease in the demands on your time? Everyone knows they can come to me to help with their grievances now and I shall pass on the important ones to you, of course.” She pointed at him with the spatula and held her hand over the pan, judging the heat coming off it.

“I’ve got you to thank for that?” David rebelled at the idea of having to thank her for anything…though he had the sneaking suspicion he would very likely beg for that omelette if she demanded it of him. He knew, evility aside, that she was an excellent cook.

“Did you think your fumbling attempts at ruling were actually making headway, shepherd king?” Regina looked over at him as if genuinely curious.

“Well…no.” David admitted after a moment. “I kind of just thought people had realised I wasn’t very good at all…this.” David waved his arm around to encompass everything.

“Oh, I think that played a part too.” Regina poured the egg mix into the pan and stirred in leftover potatoes, some ham, she’d found some peas that didn’t seem too questionable as well. She turned down the heat and glared at it, daring it to defy her culinary skills, stick to the pan and burn.

“Different isn’t it?” She cast a sideways glance at him, though it seemed more out of paranoia to make sure he was still across the room rather than any malice. “Actually running a body of people rather than simply being a figurehead. Must be quite the shock for the prince to finally inherit his kingdom.”

“What do you want, Regina?”

“I told you. Your allegiance. Your…help.” She looked like the word nearly choked her.

“My help?” David frowned at her. “The great and powerful witch of Storybrooke needs the lowly shepherd’s help?”

“Great and powerful,” Regina leaned back against the counter and pointed her spatula at herself then at him, “lowly shepherd, it seems you’ve grasped all the salient points.”

“Cut the crap, Regina. You’re the one on the quest for redemption, not me. I’ll not be surprised in the slightest when you revert to your old ways.”

Her jaw clenched and he realised –bizarrely- that he was glad to see the flash of fire in her dark eyes. He had been…worried for her. He frowned at that. No, that couldn’t be right. Worried what she might be up to. Yes. That was right. Probably.

“You know it’s funny, in a way, my trying to good is what got me into this mess. Both times.” She turned back to the pan and seemed prepared to leave it at that.

“Alright,” David gave into her and played along, “I’ll bite, tell me how you’re really just misunderstood.”

“Oh, I’m steeped in blood, Charming. Rivers of it ran from my claws, as well you know, but there have been times when my title should have just been ‘Queen’.” She managed a smile of sorts. Busying herself with the omelette, she worked the spatula under the edges and made sure it wasn’t burning. She turned to him suddenly and looked him right in the eye. “You fought the dragon with no training at all, didn’t you?”

“Maleficent?” David frowned.

“No, the other dragon, the one George bought you to kill for him.” David’s jaw clenched when she managed to even make his sacrifice for his mother seem so cheap and tawdry.

“Yeah. Luck and quick reflexes played a part but I survived and the dragon didn’t.”

“You also faced trolls with Snow, did you not?”

“I did. I knew my way around a sword by then. They didn’t breathe fire so that was a bonus too.” He smirked in a –well- charming way and she mimicked it through reflex. Years of pretending to have human emotions.

“So…you are a somewhat accomplished slayer of ravening beasts.” She looked down at her shoes for a moment and seemed disappointed.

“I went up against you enough times and managed to fail so I suppose it’s all in the perspective.” David actually regretted his snide remark when she flinched and tried to cover it by tossing her head and shaking her hair back.

She hauled on her smirk before he could apologise and spoke with that cruel malice he had come to know so well.

“No. No you didn’t. If I’d ever taken an interest in you –a serious interest- I’d have had your skin for a new saddle.” She shrugged a shoulder.

“Really? Then why didn’t you?”

“Simple; I wanted Snow to suffer. Killing you quickly would not have given her the depth and range of soul crushing anguish that I wished upon her.” Regina shrugged elegantly and turned back to the pan, minding her cooking. She seemed at best indifferent to David’s jaw grinding rage and at worst immune to it.

“Still!” She rounded suddenly and David flinched despite himself. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Yes, I assume there’s a point to all this.”

“I have need of you. Your skills.” She clarified with the expression of someone trying to make themselves feel better and failing miserably.

“Again, why should I help you?”

“Because I can’t do it myself.” It was her tone of voice, the smallness, the vulnerability in it that caught him unawares.

Not because he could see it easily, she was a master manipulator and he’d have suspected a trick, but she was still trying to hold her mask in place. The horrid queen manipulating the good prince, but the mask was slipping, cracking. He could see under it and –whatever was looking back- wasn’t the Evil Queen, it was afraid.

“Whale, when he experimented with the hearts to…to cheat death, he picked several hearts from my collection. I suppose to increase his chances of success.” Regina licked her lips and framed her next words with a forced calm. “Unfortunately for all of us, one of those hearts was not strictly…human.”

“What does that mean?”

“Do you know the tale of Jekyll and Hyde?” Regina seemed to switch subject and David narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah…vaguely.” He shrugged. “It’s fiction. From this world. Man turning into a monster, a mad scientist and all that.”

“The book that story was written in, is as fictional as the stories in Henry’s book are. Jekyll and Hyde may be figments of imagination in this world, but I assure you that they –he- was very real in ours.” Regina looked caught in a memory for a moment, haunted. “He’s the only monster I have ever feared.”

David went very still at that announcement. There was no bravado, no machinations, this was the complete and unvarnished truth. David knew it because he had never seen it from her before.

“What?”

“He was huge.” Regina turned back to her cooking and shimmied the omelette in the pan. Judging it done, she folded it in half and flipped it onto a plate. Carrying it over to David, she set it in front of him with some cutlery and even went so far as to pour a glass of juice for him. Orange, but she doubted she’d find anything to do with apples in this house.

“Huge and massive and dark and…terrifying. His skin was coal black, his hair a mane more suited to a beast and his eyes a lurid glowing green. That grin,” Regina bared her teeth as if to try and illustrate, fully snared in the past, “from ear to ear. His head seemed to split in half with it. Such terrible strength in those jaws. He could bite a grown man’s head off. In a single bite. He did it right in front of me to…well, to impress me.”

David shovelled food into his mouth and watched her with rapt fascination.

Fear. He had never seen it in Regina’s face before. He’d seen her afraid _for_ people; Henry and Daniel but never afraid of anything or anyone. He would have thought he would have enjoyed it. To see her brought down a peg or two but to see her then, this self-possessed woman of such astounding confidence and gravitas shiver like ice water had been dripped down her spine…well, it kind of made him want to hide under the bed.

“I don’t get it.” He shrugged after a moment, trying not to show how affected he was. “Your kingdom was plagued by nothing. The ogres never dared bother you, dragons wouldn’t even fly over it and now one man eating monster makes you shake in your ridiculously overpriced boots? Woman, you didn’t even blink at your own execution. It is almost enviable how untouchable you are and you’re trying to sell me on you being afraid? Regina, when your feet hit the floor in the morning, the Devil says ‘oh, shit, she’s awake!’ you’re going to have to do better than trembling hands.”

Regina frowned at him a second and then looked down, seeing the way her arms shivered as she leaned against the counter. She shoved herself upright and shook her hands as if trying to rid herself of pins and needles. She folded them over her chest with a thud and glared at him.

“What could this beast possibly have done to frighten you?”

“He was courting me.”

David blinked. Oh…kay?

“He came to my lands seeking a worthy mate. Apparently he had travelled far and wide and through MANY women before he found himself at my feet. He looked into my black heart and saw a female that could…’keep the pace’.” Regina tried to speak with a cold detachment but it wasn’t working. She’d never seen so much blood before she’d seen it dripping from Hyde’s maw. “He thought we’d be a good fit.”

“Oh, a match made in heaven.” David agreed and finished his half of the omelette. “Why’d you release such a fine catch?”

“You know,” Regina held up her finger as if just suddenly coming to the realisation, “it’s a toss up between all of the Blackguards he ate and all the gifts he made of girls that matched Snow’s description.” Regina leaned back a little and tapped her finger against her lips, studying the ceiling and trying to decide. “I can’t rightly recall which was the dealbreaker though.”

“You mean you couldn’t control him.”

“ _He_ couldn’t control him.” Regina snapped. “You may think I’m madder than a bag of cats but even back then I was JUST sane enough to know that setting fire to people for kicks and dancing in time to their death throes wasn’t required of the leader of a country and that putting down mad dogs that threatened everyone was.” Regina sucked in a deep breath and composed herself.

“Needless to say, he didn’t take my rejection well, apparently he was going to kill, rape and eat me. In that order if I was particularly lucky. I suppose it’s unfortunate for all concerned that he didn’t succeed, hmm?” It was the blasé way that she said it. The acceptance of such a fate that got to David.

“Don’t say that. Even you don’t deserve that.”

“Was that…compassion?”

“Indigestion.” David coughed. “Won’t happen again.”

“See to it that it doesn’t.” Regina looked more thrown by that than anything else.

“So,” he cleared his throat and tried to steer the conversation back to more comfortable topics like death, mayhem and murder, “you tore his heart out.”

“Oh, it wasn’t as easy as all that.” Regina managed a hollow laugh. “He led me on a merry chase across all the realms, from one end of the Enchanted Forest to another. His shapeshifting meant he could pass completely unnoticed amongst the ranks of yours and George’s soldiers and I never did see what his other face was. When I finally did corner him, it took over a hundred arrows, half of my Blackguards and a measure of my blood to get to him.” Regina’s fingers lifted to her lip and the faint scar there. “He dislocated my jaw. With his thumb. Fortunately, I didn’t need to speak the spell to tear his heart out. It took both hands.”

“Half the Blackguard? Your infamous fighting force, five of which stormed mine and Snow’s palace successfully? THOSE Blackguards?”

“Didn’t you ever wonder why I only brought five? The rest died from injuries sustained in that final battle and…I didn’t replace them because after I’d managed to vanquish this hellish beast I returned to find you had won the war against George and were enjoying your nuptials with the ever loving Snow and I…well, everyone knows what I did.” Regina propped a hip against the counter and heaved a sigh, seeming suddenly exhausted.

Charming wanted to offer her a chair if he’d thought she’d accept.

“Why on earth did you keep it?!” The question burst from him and she shot him a look that told him she thought even he should know her better than that.

“Vengeance, of course. All of that power, power the likes of which you can scarcely comprehend in the palm of my hand and in such a handy vessel to replace the heart of someone else say…Snow’s? Yours? Hell, at one point I considered my own.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It has been a long time since anyone accused me of being a well balanced individual.” Regina shrugged. “I was angry and scared and I felt threatened. Bad things happen when I feel threatened…unfortunately, it seems that there isn’t really a time limit on when such things occur and who they are bad for.”

“Alright, so what’s all this got to do with me?” David pushed his plate and the leftover omelette towards her and she looked down at it, puzzled for a moment.

She frowned and shook her head, pushing it back at him.

“It’s for you.”

“You’re not going to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Could you sit down then?” David knew she had to be hungry. She looked starved. He’d never seen her sick. Never. She looked it now.

“I don’t plan on staying long.”

“You’ve been here for over half an hour. Sit down before you fall down.”

She glared at him.

“Killing a dragon, defeating another and winning a war is an impressive resume. You, of all people, might be able to defeat Hyde.” Regina said instead.

“You think Whale put Hyde’s heart in someone? Another dead body?”

Regina looked at him then and he knew.

“Daniel.”

She nodded but he noticed she never said his name.

“The process Jekyll used to turn into Hyde is chemical. In the blood. There is no blood in an enchanted heart but Jekyll’s process was done with science, not magic. Science like Whale’s and…there’s a chance…” Regina seemed unable to finish and she looked at Charming almost pleadingly. “We can’t risk that kind of evil loose here. Hyde makes Rumplestiltskin, George, Maleficent and I look like the Maine chapter of the Women’s Institute. He’d flatten this town in an afternoon and…evil consumes evil. It doesn’t vanquish it. You’re a hero. Father to the Saviour, you’re bound to be useful for something other than standing around and looking dashing.” She tried to jab at him but her heart wasn’t in it.

“So, Daniel could change? Turn into Hyde?”

“Or something like him.” Regina looked away from David and rubbed at her eyes. “This is my favour, this is what I ask of you. If…when…the time comes, could you, would you…gods!”

Regina looked down and covered her eyes with her hand, it did nothing to stop her tears slipping past anyway.

“You really do love him, don’t you?” David truly realised it then. “Despite everything you’ve done, the lives you’ve taken, the dreams you’ve destroyed, the pain and anguish you rained down on us all for decades and you can still love? Wholly and completely, you love him. That’s how you did it, isn’t it? True Love’s kiss took his pain away. Brought him back to you.”

“Oh, don’t you fret, Charming.” Regina dropped her hand and looked away from him still, blinking furiously with red rimmed eyes. “The Evil Queen shall not get her happy ending. I’ll suffer for a time yet.”

“What do you mean?” David frowned. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.” Regina lied then. It was easier to see now that she’d finally told him the truth. “The curse is over though, we all start aging again. Soon I’ll be old and frail enough to shove in front of a bus without much trouble. Even you’ll manage it.” She winked at him.

“Regina, don’t talk like that!”

“Listen to me,” she said suddenly, ignoring his bout of compassion or indigestion or whatever, “I don’t know if I can help when the time comes. Not even to restrain him I just know…I can’t do it myself. I can’t watch him die again. I just can’t.”

David was quiet for long moments and picked at the remains of the omelette. He suddenly didn’t feel very hungry at all.

“How long do we have? Before he turns?”

“I don’t know.” Regina shrugged a little helplessly. “He may not at all. That’s the worst thing, I don’t know for sure but…” Regina thought back to her conversation with Daniel, the darkness rising in him, that comment about prawns.

_“Such a violent thing you are, pretty one, snapping their backs, off with their head! Rip off the legs, swallowing them whole, hoping they’re dead.”_

Regina still couldn’t eat prawns after she had seen Hyde eat them too…he had mistaken human beings for prawns, of course, but it’s easily done when your trolley’s missing and you’re decidedly not on it.

“There have been signs.” She finally spoke.

“Signs?” David huffed out a breath and clattered his fork onto his plate. “Signs?! If we’re to murder your fiancé, I’m going to need something a bit more concrete than ‘SIGNS’!”

“He’s not my fiancé! We are not together, we _cannot_ be together.” Regina shook herself and regained control with an ease that was a little frightening. “Besides, I’m not saying you have to snatch up your sword and run off to slay the horrific monster I’m saying that there could be one in the offing. Be on your guard.”

“Well, we’re going to have to monitor him.”

“From a distance, preferably.” Regina agreed.

“Or with someone who can get away fast enough if he turns.”

“Which leaves…?”

“You, Ruby…the faeries…” David rapidly ran out of candidates.

“NOT the faeries!” Regina spoke with an alarming vehemence. “Her high and mightiness the Blue Superior would kill Daniel if she even got a hint that he could turn. I can do without Blue’s particular brand of idiocy. You should know that better than anyone.”

“Idiocy? Blue was smart enough to beat you with the wardrobe.” David frowned at her.

“The wardrobe?” Regina looked at him like he was dense. Well, denser than usual.

“Blue told us how to build the wardrobe, how to get Emma to safety.”

“Ye-es, and my Blackguard injured you before you could follow her through.” Regina pondered it a moment. “I have to admit, I was surprised at that. I had assumed that I would find all three of you there. Even wounded, I have known you to accomplish annoying feats of strength. Carrying your wife and newborn would not, I had thought, have been beyond you. I suppose Snow was too weak to be carried? Too much bloodloss? The curse repaired the damage done by such things, the same way it healed your wounds…why are you looking at me like that?”

Regina realised belatedly that she had been rambling and he’d never seen that from her before. Well, this was the longest conversation they’d ever had with one another. She was surprised they hadn’t run out of things to say yet.

“I couldn’t have followed Emma through.”

“Why not?” Regina knew he wasn’t talking about her Blackguard getting in his way.

“Because,” he gritted between clenched teeth, “there was only enough magic in the tree for one person to go through.”

“Snow should have called you the eighth dwarf; Stupid.”

“What?!”

“Did you ever note the SIZE of said tree? It was centuries old! Even with the task of crossing worlds, that tree could have taken more than one. It’s called the Enchanted Forest for a reason. Most of the trees in there were magical to a fairly serious degree. Did you not wonder where Gepetto found the wood for his darlingest little muppet?”

“Blue said there was only enough magic for one crossing…” David spoke with the air of someone who could hear the penny dropping from way up high.

“Mother Inferior is an idiot.” Regina dismissed it, not quite noticing the shift she was setting off in Charming’s world view. “That tree would have had the power for two crossings at least, if you’d built a door with it you could have probably have managed…four or five? At a time?”

“You mean,” David surged to his feet, “Emma didn’t have to come here alone? We could have been a family? We could have told her our stories and helped her be the Saviour? She didn’t have to give up Henry?”

Regina’s jaw clenched. _Give up_ , what a charming euphemism for washing her hands of her responsibility. It was funny how Regina was the only one who remembered that Emma had given up the right to Henry a decade ago.

“Well, let’s face it, if Emma had grown up with you, Henry probably wouldn’t exist.” She sobered at that thought. David too.

“Small favours.” He murmured and looked down at her hand gripping the counter, it was white knuckled. He felt anger rise in him. “No! This is a lie! A trick.”

 “What _possible_ motive could I have for…? Never mind, will you help me or not? If the time comes.”

“Why should I when you’re up to your old tricks again? Falling back into bad habits.”

“WHAT TRICKS?!” Regina nearly screamed at him, her temper at an end. “I have come here to you –a hated enemy- and asked you to help me MURDER the love of my life. A man who I love and will love wholly and truly, with a passion that can barely be restrained by the human heart, for the rest of my LIFE! It will shatter me beyond saving and you have the _gall_ to accuse me of tricks!? Believe me, if there was any other way to take this from him, to suffer the pain in his stead I would do…do it in…heartbeat…”

“Regina?”

Regina saw a wavering shape that might have been David move towards her. Her hand went to her chest and fisted in her shirt. She felt it pounding into her. The magic. The curse. No. Not yet. Just a little while longer. She had to see this through.

“Regina!” His voice seemed very far away and she wavered on her feet.

“Can’t…I can’t…” Regina’s eyes rolled back in her head and her legs buckled.

She was too unconscious to note the surprise on David’s face when he lunged to catch her before she hit the floor.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 – Breaking**

 

“Regina?”

Regina’s eyes fluttered and she groaned.

“Regina, can you hear me?”

“Not so loud.” Regina was surprised at the croak of her voice. She blearily opened her eyes and found Rachel’s wholesome face floating over hers. She grimaced and pushed her away, moving to sit up. Her brain throbbed in her skull and her eyes widened. She lay hurriedly back down. “That was a terrible idea.”

“Yeah, it was.” Rachel sat closer again and moved on to the real torture. Sending a blinding beam of light into Regina’s eyes to check her responses. Sluggish, but getting better. “Do you know where you are? Can you tell me what day it is? Where does it hurt? How many fingers?”

“Ow.” Regina pushed Rachel back. “Stop that.”

“Regina…”

“I’m in Snow’s loft, on the couch, facing a South-Westerly direction. It’s Tuesday. I am accustomed to pain and I imagine you’ve always had eight fingers and two thumbs.” Regina risked sitting up again, paranoia demanding at least a little verticality so as to better defend herself.

Rachel moved out of the way with an irritable resignation when Regina swung her legs carefully over the side of the couch, fully prepared to watch her land flat on her face and let that teach her a lesson.

“Ugh.” Regina dropped her head into her hands rather than try and stand. Finally, a little sense.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Don’t sound so worried, Charming.” Regina mumbled around her hands. “Falsehood clashes horribly with your nobility.”

“She’s fine.” David turned away and heaved a sigh.

He felt a slow unclenching in his chest and pondered that a moment. He really shouldn’t be worried for her. She was a psychopath. He’d be well shot of her if she just keeled over dead but that would be so…so…anticlimactic. If she was going to die, he knew they’d both prefer it be in a suitable show of drama and –if at all possible- pyrotechnics. Anything less would just make all the turmoil up until now seem…pointless.

“And still in the room.” Regina needled him.

“Next time I’ll let you fall on your head. Maybe knock some decency into you.”

Rachel cut in when Regina lifted her head, she might be barely conscious but it appeared sheer meanness came as naturally to the woman as breathing.

“Low blood sugar, I think.” She drew Regina’s attention to herself and decided to consider how unwise that might have been later. “When was the last time you ate?”

“Breakfast.”

“Alright, when was the last time you ate something more substantial than the sweetener in your coffee?”

Regina sat with her head in her hands and appeared to ignore them.

“Regina?” Rachel actually reached out and prodded her with a finger to make sure she hadn’t passed out again.

“I’m thinking!” She flinched away from Rachel’s touch like it was caustic and shot a glare at the younger woman. “Sunday. Probably.”

“Regina, it’s Tuesday!” Rachel waved her arm wildly. “What the hell?!”

“I’ve had other things to contend with!” Regina hissed at her. The yelling was doing nothing to help her head. She felt like she’d drunk a barrel full of her infamous cider and then been trampled by a vindictive marching band in the night. “It’s been a hectic week.”

“Doing _what_?!” Rachel demanded. “Sitting in that big house of yours stagnating, NOT doing any Mayoral or maternal type things and otherwise trying to avoid any other form of human contact?”

“I’ve had other projects.” Regina muttered and went back to her head cradling. Good grief, her _hair_ hurt.

“Well, your next project is dinner. Charming, make yourself useful and cook something.” Rachel rounded on their host, who looked indignant at her commanding tone but moved off to do as he was told anyway.

“No.” Regina grumbled.

“Regina, so help me, you will eat something or I will knock you the hell out and drag you to the hospital by your hair and I have a WEALTH of experience when it comes to hair dragging.” Rachel folded her arms over her chest and Regina arched a brow then changed her mind when expressions hurt her face.

“I’ve seen him cook. I’m not going to be able to eat anything he gives me. I have no desire to get salmonella on top of everything else.”

“Hey!” David rounded on her. “I’m a good cook!”

“Compared toooo…?” Regina taunted him.

“Granny’s it is then!” Rachel interjected a little desperately.

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea.” Regina managed a caustic smile. “They can string me up by the little bell over the door so the kicking of my throttling self can set it to jangling. Perhaps after that I can be in the Meatloaf Surprise.” Regina rubbed at the space between her eyes. “I hope I give them all food poisoning.”

“Everyone knows that the surprise is that it’s vegetarian.” Rachel was getting less and less impressed with her reluctant patient and she hadn’t been all that dazzled to begin with.

“I’ll go and get some takeout.” David decided he’d had enough and the chivalry in him wouldn’t let him bodily throw either woman out the door no matter how irritating they were in their own ways. He yanked on his jacket and –despite being somewhat wary of Rachel- had to smirk at her no fear, no nonsense attitude when it came to dealing with Regina.

“Her majesty will have something deep fried and sugary.”

“I most certainly will no…”

“When I said ‘knock out’ I really meant ‘high five your face with a brick’.” Rachel told her and Regina scowled at her but remained silent.

“You want anything?” David directed that at Rachel and the good doctor dazzled him with a sudden smile.

“I could do horrific things for some of Granny’s broth and a white roll. There’s money in my purse.” She nodded to her handbag on the island counter. Only her medical kit was open on the coffee table.

“I got it.” David shrugged it off and headed for the diner.

Regina watched him go with a weather eye, considered Rachel, discounted her and then rose to her feet.

Rachel sighed and picked Regina up off the floor and set her back on the couch.

If at all possible, Regina looked paler than she already had and she sagged back in her seat, not even protesting when Rachel measured her pulse and then viciously (and maliciously, Regina was certain) stabbed her finger to take a blood sugar test.

“Good gravy.” Rachel muttered at the readout and lanced Regina with a glare.

Regina didn’t even have the grace to flinch, considering her eyes were closed and she was trying to breathe through the nausea that assailed her from all sides. It had been intermittent the last couple of days and Regina had been so bad at times that she wouldn’t have been able to keep food down even if she’d wanted to.

“Alright. Enough.” Rachel snapped her medical case closed to get Regina’s attention and met the other woman’s weakened glare with a furious one of her own. “What the hell is going on?”

“Low blood sugar. You said so yourself.” Regina’s voice was barely above a croak.

“You look like death.” Rachel snapped at her. “Cut the bull and come clean with me. What have you done to yourself?”

“I haven’t done anything.” Regina tried to sit up straighter when the slouching began to make her back ache. She nodded to Rachel in thanks when the girl helped her. Rachel was a lot stronger than she looked.

“David said you were pretty worked up before you fainted.”

“Panic attack then.” Regina shrugged.

“Yes, because Evil Queens are known for their flighty and delicate constitutions.” Rachel rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet you’ve never fainted a day in your life.”

“You don’t know me very well.” Regina sank deeper into the cushions on the couch and tried to surreptitiously draw the blanket David had put over her back around her. She felt every single one of her years and a few decades older than that too. If this was what being old felt like, she had no desire to live through it.

Good thing she had always known she’d die young.

“I know enough. I can feel it. The magic in you. There’s something wrong. Terribly wrong.”

“It’s nothing.”

“So we’re admitting there’s an ‘it’. This is progress.”

“I _loathe_ you.” Regina glared at her.

“Kapwang.” Rachel traced the trajectory of the insult to her body with her finger and then showed it bouncing harmlessly away. She waited stoically. Staring Regina down. Doctor trumps queen, she reminded herself. Several times.

“Perhaps side effects from not using magic.” Regina finally allowed. “I haven’t had it in any real sense for nearly thirty years, to suddenly be chock full of it again…there are repercussions.”

“So…this is like not weight training for months on end and then suddenly trying to bench your personal best?” Rachel tried to understand. She had grown up with magic, literally having it part of her own body, but she had never learned more than how to heal with her hair and that stupid little song.

“Magic is sacrifice.” Regina said quietly. “Anyone who tells you differently is lying or a fool.”

“The faeries use fairy dust.” Rachel had to point that out.

“Diamonds. They sacrifice diamonds for their power and feed it to the magic to get what they want. Magic is magic, dear, neither good nor bad, but there is always a price.”

“You sound like Rumplestiltskin.”

“The imp is correct. Rumple and I are the best so our price has always been the greatest. He pays his by being the Dark One.”

“And how do you pay yours?”

“Hearts. Death. Murder. Mayhem.” Regina shrugged her shoulder. “Rumple and I take our sacrifices from others and offer them up. Which has the side effect of making us the baddest of the bad.”

“But you’re not doing that anymore.” Regina cast her a look and Rachel frowned. Thinking it over. Regina was telling her everything she needed to know but the queen wasn’t going to make it easy for her. Rachel just had to think about it and she’d come to the…

“Daniel.” She said suddenly. “You said the cost –the price- for breaking the Old Laws, the ones about life and death, would be huge. A price that you paid. Not Daniel.”

Regina, despite herself, smirked at the girl’s cleverness.

“Eating a death curse is on hell of a sacrifice. I was awarded,” her eyes closed and she pressed her lips together as if savouring the taste of her favourite wine, “ _such_ power for it.”

“Power that you haven’t used.” Regina shook her head. “So…you’ve got all this power in you, lighting you up like freaking Times Square on New Year’s, and you’re not letting it out?”

“Close enough.”

“Regina, that’s stupid!” Rachel nearly yelled and gentled her tone when Regina winced. “You’re going to kill yourself!”

Regina didn’t answer, just sank back into the couch and closed her eyes again.

“How long?” Rachel demanded again, louder, when she didn’t get her answer the first time. “How. Long?”

“Months. Weeks.” Regina opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Days. I won’t see Henry’s next birthday.”

Rachel rocked back and blinked. She looked about herself as if expecting the answer to the problem to be daubed on the walls. She turned back to Regina and then a fierce look came over her.

“Well, start using magic then.”

“I promised Henry I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, come ON!” Rachel threw her hands up. “I can’t say I know Henry very well but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want you to DIE! He obviously doesn’t know what this is doing to you. Explain it to him and…”

“He’ll say it’s a trick.” Regina never raised her voice. Didn’t even glare at Rachel. Just spoke quietly with the utter surety that she was right.

“He’ll see.” Rachel argued. “Anyone can see you’re not well and I think this is going to get a whole lot worse for you before you finally go toes up. How are you going to look him in the eye and tell him that you could save yourself but you just won’t?”

“Simple. I won’t. He doesn’t see me now. I hardly think he’s going to want to in the near future. I’ll be gone before he realises.”

“And what has he done to deserve such cruelty?!” Rachel demanded. “How could you lay that guilt at his feet? Rob him of his chance of having a mother in his life?”

“He has a mother!” Regina snapped, sitting up ramrod straight, her rage galvanising her for a moment. “He has made that abundantly clear to anyone who will listen. The Saviour rescued him right out from under me and I can’t…there is no undoing it.”

“Oh, the woman that squatted him into this world and then signed him away? That mother? The one who has sweet eff-A parenting experience, living with her parents who ALSO have the nurturing skills of a T-Rex with gout?” Rachel saw the weak spot and stuck the scalpel in. “None of them know him like you do. None of them RAISED him. He might seem happy with them now and Emma might be his mom but you are the one he called mommy and –pretty soon- he’s going to realise that you’re his home.”

“I do believe you’re projecting, dear.”

“And I do believe you’re abandoning the boy you promised you wouldn’t.”

Regina flinched as if struck and Rachel steeled herself against it. She couldn’t really say why she was so hell bent on saving Regina, or perhaps she didn’t want to admit the reasons to herself, but she was determined to do it by any means necessary.

“I’m not abandoning him.” Regina frowned at her. “I’ll make it seem like I left Storybrooke, before the time comes, he’ll think that I’ve moved away to give him peace. Part of my…redemption.”

“Oh, for the love of…!” Rachel would have throttled Regina quite happily then but she’d taken the whole Do No Harm thing pretty seriously up until now. “Redemption? What good is that if you’re dead? I’m sure he’d prefer you alive and suffering from some questionable morality than dead. You’re his mother.”

“And how long can I keep it up?!” Regina snarled at her. “How long can I be ‘mommy’ rather than the Evil Queen? Because _that’s_ what he wants.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how long I can maintain the façade. I don’t know how long I can pretend to be good. You don’t GET IT. It’s so EASY for everyone else. They get to be normal. They get to go through their mindless cattle lives humming and hawing to themselves in a mediocrity of morality that’s never challenged and they just NATURALLY do good. They’re content to just be.”

Regina was panting now, the effort costing her but she forged on. She’d started and now it was just pouring out of her.

“It pains me to be alive. I am in AGONY. Every waking moment of every single day, the weight of my past presses down on me and now –with the curse broken- I must face it. Every heart in the vault, every voice crying out in the dark of the night, every village burned and trust betrayed. Every. Single. One.” Regina began to shake, her voice trembling and Rachel wanted to stop her but she just didn’t know how.

“It’s so easy for you. You don’t know how good it feels, to make other people hurt instead of you. To put all of that onto someone else but you learn too late. You learn for every time you put it into someone else, their pain comes back on you along with every bit of your own until it can crush you and that’s what’s happening to me now.” Regina sagged in her chair and stared at her hands like they belonged to someone else. Those hands that had cast so much magic and caused so much pain. “I am dying, inch by inch, pulverised bone by bone. I’m being ground to nothing and I would like –very much- to die before I find someone else to put that on because I wouldn’t wish it on ANYONE.”

“Not even Snow?” Rachel had no idea what made her ask the question and she could have kicked herself at the flash of stark emotion that went through Regina.

Nobody really knew why the queen had spent decades trying to kill Snow. Why she had cursed an entire world to rain misery on her. A lot of people assumed it was just because she was crazed and had fixated on Snow, but Rachel could see that Regina was right. She was in pain. So much pain. What could Snow have done to wound Regina so deeply?

“No.” Regina finally answered. “Not even Snow. My sins are my own.”

“That’s bullshit and you’re a coward!” Rachel snapped at her. “You suited leather and lace a lot better than you do martyrdom. I’ve heard a lot of things from a lot of people with regards to the Evil Queen and I’ve yet to hear anyone call you yellow.”

Rachel jumped to her feet and began to pace, unable to contain the fiery energy that burned her with her anger.

“Suicide is the coward’s way out. Vlad was there at your execution, he told me how you didn’t even flinch. Where’s _that_ Regina? If she was the Evil Queen and you say you still are, why go so quietly into the night? You can’t have it both ways. Only good people think they deserve to die.”

“And live on as _what_?” Regina demanded. She wanted badly to stand toe-to-toe with Rachel and yell right back at her but she knew she was up to neither. “Go back to being that cold, unloving, unlovable psychopath? That’s not living! Either way, I lose Henry and that’s the only thing keeping me here.”

“And Daniel?”

All the air rushed out of Regina as harshly as if Rachel had kicked her in the stomach and she convulsively flinched. Rachel’s eyes went wide, thinking Regina was going to start seizing, but she controlled herself with an iron will that proved she was more than capable of surviving this stupid death curse.

“Don’t.”

Rachel stilled at the tone of that single word. The pain and pleading loaded into it. She might have expected many things from Regina, but never begging.

“Please, just don’t.” Regina swiped at her eyes. She shuddered violently at whatever came to mind when she thought of Daniel and his future. “You’re supposed to be one of the good ones. Can you not just let me die in peace?”

“You’re gonna die?”

Both women twisted violently to see Henry in the doorway.

Neither of them had heard him open the door and he stood there, his school bag hanging halfway down his arms. He had been stopped halfway through the motion of dumping it on the floor when he had realised it was his mom on the couch and what she was talking about with Doctor Towers –Rapunzel- standing over her.

“Henry!” Regina seemed stunned for a moment and then her face, her entire demeanour, softened for him. “When did you get here?”

Rachel had to admit it was a good way of phrasing ‘how much did you hear?’ but Henry wasn’t a fool.

Regina, despite all her other faults, was a good mother and had raised her son to be too smart for her own good.

“Right about the time you said you wanted to die in peace.” Henry accused her, dumping his bag and running across the room to stand over her. He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time in a long time and something imploded in his chest. He was angry when his voice sounded babyish, cracking halfway through his words. “You’re gonna die?”

“I…no. Of course not.” Regina shook her head and smiled. “It was a joke. A poor one.”

“You’re lying!” Henry yelled at her. “You said you wouldn’t anymore!”

“Then I suppose that must have been a lie too.” Regina looked at him levelly and smirked at him. Not her smile, not the one she kept just for him, but the smirk she made when she won.

“That’s not going to work!” Henry was screaming now and he rocked Regina back in her seat with his ferocity. “You can’t get me madder than I already am and I’m not running away from you this time! You’re supposed to get better! You’re supposed to be good! How can you do that if you die?!” When his mom just looked at him, stunned –surprised that he seemed to care- he broke. “HOW?! TELL ME HOW. TELL ME RIGHT NOW AND DON’T LIE BECAUSE I’LL KNOW IF YOU LIE. I’VE ALWAYS KNOWN BECAUSE YOU’RE MY MOM AND EVEN WHEN YOU WERE EVIL I LOVED YOU AND…and…and that’s…not fair…I should hate you and I don’t.”

Henry dissolved completely into tears, great wracking sobs and did not surrender easily to Regina but Rachel saw she had been right.

She’d had no idea what to do when Henry had flown into such a rage. Yell back? Leave him to tantrum it out? Just stand there and take it? But Regina had known.

She’d had to almost crawl across the couch, every movement costing her, a cold sweat slicking her skin by the time she reached him. She leaned over the arm of the sofa, gripping him by the arms and pulled him to her. He fought her but it was for show, for his pride, just like his mom, and finally only surrendered when she wrapped her arms around him and tugged him into her chest.

Henry broke down completely, his hands fisting in her shirt at her back, sobbing uncontrollably into her neck, falling over the arm of the couch to land almost on top of her. She held him and shushed him, rocking him gently, stroking his hair. Tears streamed down her face unchecked and she looked up at Rachel.

Rachel, not one to back down, looked pointedly at Henry and then back to Regina.

Regina nodded. She knew. She finally got it.

Rachel gathered up her things and made to leave, nearly bowling over Charming laden with food in the doorway.

“You’re not staying?”

“I’m not needed anymore.” Rachel smiled.

“Oh,” David looked in the doorway and his brows rose, “what the hell is going on here?”

“That’s between Regina and Henry.” Rachel shifted her purse high on her shoulder. “Make sure she eats all of that and I think it would be best if she stayed with someone.”

“Really?” Charming didn’t look happy about it but he finally heaved a sigh and nodded. “I’ll look after her.”

Rachel studied him a long moment, her face unreadable and she finally nodded.

“You’re a good man, Charming.”

“It’s David.” Charming smiled that goofy smile of his and Rachel seemed puzzled by it more than anything else. It was overtaken by irritation at his next words. “You’re not even going to give me a hint as to what I’m walking into?”

“No. Unlike certain crickets, I actually keep my word when it comes to doctor/patient confidentiality.”

David rocked back on his heels and held up a paper bag as a peace offering.

“Your soup.” Rachel blinked, thrown and looked at the bag. Shaking her head sharply, embarrassed that she had snapped at a man who really didn’t deserve it. “Keep it, Henry will probably need it more than I will.”

Rachel shifted awkwardly.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“It’s okay. Regina has that effect on people.” He smiled to let her know he wasn’t too serious.

“Just…be gentle with her. Please.” Rachel hunched her shoulders in a kind of shrug. “You know, because you’re one of the good guys.”

“I’ll do it because she’s Henry’s mom.” David told her. He sighed. “She might be a crazy psychopath whose only redeeming feature appears to be her dress sense but she raised Henry right. I owe her for that at least.”

“Careful, Charming, that sounded almost affectionate.”

“Yeah, well…she’s kind of a fixture, you know?”

Rachel huffed out a breath like a laugh and nodded.

“Actually I do.”

“Thanks for coming round. You didn’t have to.”

“Yes, I did.” Rachel looked back at Regina and Henry. “I’m glad I did.”

She wrestled with herself a moment and then turned back to David.

“The prognosis isn’t great, she needs rest and time to recoup her strength. You know as well as I do she’s going to be a stubborn bitch about this but it is serious. Don’t let her fob you off.”

“I understand.” David withstood her probing look to make sure he really did and then she nodded, hitching her purse higher over her shoulder.

“See you later, David. Call me if you need me. I’ll pick up.”

“Will do, Rapunzel.”

“I prefer Rachel.”

“Alright, Rachel, have a nice night.”

“I’d say you too but…we both know it’s going to be a bitch.” Rapunzel, Rachel, gave him a saluting wave and then turned, disappearing down the hallway, leaving David alone outside his apartment.

“Yes,” he agreed, turning to head inside with dinner, “yes she is.”

 

_**The Mills Mansion...** _

 

“Hey, Regina, we’re here.”

Regina jerked awake, her heart pounding when she found Charming’s face hovering over her own, and she forced the fear down. He was no threat to her. Least of all with Henry in the back seat.

“Thank you for driving me home.” Regina scrambled at the door, releasing her seatbelt and trying to get away before he started _helping_ her again.

Charming had taken it upon himself to become her nurse maid (Regina highly suspected a certain long haired doctor’s intervention) and she had –of course- fought him every step of the way.

She’d been prevented from actively fleeing, however, when Henry had refused to let go of her and, even now, sat in the back seat watching her with a mixture of endearing worry and volcanic anger.

She’d had dinner forced down her neck, an inordinate number of cups of tea and had suffered through s’mores that had been toasted under the grill.

Having Henry wrapped around her had helped. Magic wasn’t a purely physical ailment when it turned on its caster, there was an emotional component too. Henry grounding her had gone a long way to granting her a reprieve and letting her keep her dinner down. She did actually feel better and she should probably thank Charming but it was awkward enough with him acting as her ally and friend without either of them voicing a debt of gratitude between them.

Still, she felt like she had about as much strength and energy as a week old kitten. She was very nearly glad when Charming threw himself out of the truck and around to her side before she could try and negotiate the drop to the ground in four inch heels and a pencil skirt.

“Here.” Charming had given up on asking her permission to help about four hours ago and now just went ahead and did it.

She grumbled but didn’t fight him when his hands spanned her slim waist and he lifted her down out of the truck. He held onto her until she got a good grip on the door so she didn’t land on her ass and then he moved to grab his bag from the car.

He couldn’t believe he was doing this. Staying the night with the Evil Queen.

Then again, she’d be flat on her face on the floor in the apartment –in an attempt to crawl out the door probably- if he hadn’t used his common sense rather than hers and given in to her.

She had point blank refused to stay in Snow’s loft and had become quite agitated at the mere prospect so David had caved and ordered Henry to gather up some of his stuff, they were off to the Mayor’s Mansion.

Henry had immediately bounced off to stuff a change of clothes and some comic books in a bag and David had rounded on Regina demanding to know what was really going on because he had NEVER seen Henry that broken.

Regina had looked him dead in the eye and told him that she might die within the next few days and Henry had found out.

David had been floored. He’d known she wasn’t well, people in tip top condition did not keel over in the middle of conversations, but to have her tell him that it was terminal…it had thrown him for a loop.

David hefted his bag over his shoulder, filled with his own change of clothes and –he knew she’d noticed- his sword. He found her at the hood of the car when he returned to her.

She had hand-walked her way along the body of the car and seemed to be doing some math to see if she could make it the three steps from the car to the wall of the house for some support.

David, his patience having been reduced to minimal levels when it came to her and her pride, hefted his bag more securely onto his back and scooped her up into his arms. She squeaked and he resisted the urge to laugh.

“Put me down!”

“We’ll be here all night if I wait for you to get strong enough to walk to your own damn front door.” David hoisted her higher against his chest when she squirmed and tried to fling herself out of his hold, even though she had to know she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own.

So damn _wilful._ Stupid too.

“Stop that.” Something in his voice made her still and she folded her arms over her chest and sulked. David rolled his eyes and froze when he felt his hackles go up.

Regina squeaked when he dropped her legs, swung her behind him and drew his sword all in one fluid motion.

“Whoever you are, you have exactly three seconds to get the hell out of here. The Queen is not on the menu tonight.” He surprised himself at the low level of the snarl that rolled out of his chest.

Sure, David had sworn to protect her, but he hadn’t realised that he’d taken it so seriously.

The shadow on the porch had rocked back on its heels, head tilted back from the sword point levelled at its throat. Twin pinpoints of silver marked pupils in the shadow face and, it wasn’t until the sword point drew back a little that it stepped down from the porch and into the moonlight.

“Daniel?” David frowned at the other man, who didn’t appear happy to see him in the slightest.

In fact, he looked really, REALLY, pissed off.

“David,” Daniel’s voice was cold and hard, “you want to explain what’s going on here?”

David nearly jumped when Regina tilted forward, her forehead thumping against his back between his shoulder blades.

She grumbled into the leather of his jacket.

“And the hits keep on coming.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11 – Cups Running Over**

 

David eyed Daniel and didn’t lower his sword.

Regina’s words, her worries over what might lie in Daniel’s chest, pounded in David’s head. He licked his lips and pushed Regina even further behind him.

Daniel’s eyes dropped with the movement of Charming’s hand and burned with their intensity when he saw David’s hand cup Regina’s hip and push her even further behind the bulk of his body.

Daniel’s chin tilted up, his jaw tightening to a line of granite. He rolled his shoulders under his jacket and met David’s gaze head on. His fists tightened so hard they crackled. He had the obscene urge to wrap his hands around David’s head and squeeze until red spurted between his fingers. He muscled it down and watched David.

“Well?” The growl that had taken up residence in his voice made it sound like it belonged to someone else and he gentled himself when he saw a hint of Regina’s flinch. “Am I going to get an answer?”

“Nothing’s going on.” David finally spoke after a long moment of waiting for Regina to chime in. “Just bringing Regina home.”

“I can see that.” Daniel prowled forward and stopped when David shifted with him, keeping himself between Regina and Daniel. Daniel’s head tilted. “Well, this is new. Prince Charming offering to protect the Evil Queen. What will the little villagers say?”

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“Marvellous.” Daniel bared his teeth in something like a smile. “Leave and there won’t be any.”

“Henry, take your mom inside.” David didn’t turn to look at his grandson and Henry –despite his pathological need to meddle- wisely kept his mouth shut and scooted forward to take Regina’s hand.

“Round the back, Henry.” David’s arm stretched out to bar them from coming around his side. “Go round back.”

“David…” Regina’s voice was weak behind him but David still didn’t turn, even when her fingers tightened on his sleeve. “Please.”

“It’ll be fine.” David reached blindly back and herded her away. “Let Henry take you inside.”

“Right.” Regina caught on eventually and looped her arm around Henry’s shoulders, trying not to lean too heavily on him as he escorted her around the side of the mansion.

If things went South and –judging by the look on Daniel’s face- they might well do, David wanted to put as many obstacles between Hyde-lite and Henry as he could. Bricks, mortar and Regina if at all possible. He knew she would give everything she had to protect her son and –weakened or not- if she had beat Hyde as a monster, she should be able to beat the shadow in Daniel’s chest.

If one even existed.

Daniel stretched up on his toes to watch Regina disappear around the side of the house, one arm hugged around Henry and the other around herself, before his gimlet glare filleted David.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.” David finally lowered his sword a little. “You just startled us is all.”

“Startled was five minutes ago when all you could see was my shadow, you’re afraid of me. Why?”

“Regina and Henry might have forgotten what you’re capable of, but I haven’t.”

Daniel jerked as if David had swung for him and blinked.

“I’m not…I’m no danger to anyone.”

“We both know that’s not true.” David prodded carefully.

If he had to take on monsters at all, he’d have preferred his nine millimetre to be on his hip and perhaps a shotgun on his back for good measure, but his sword had gotten him through enough hellish scrapes in the past not to be discounted. Regina and Henry were out of the way, the Mills Mansion was far enough removed from other homes…he’d been in worse situations.

Now all he needed was for Hyde to show himself.

_If_ he was even in there.

David resisted the strong urge to growl. This was ridiculous. Regina’s paranoia was infectious. He had only her crazed ramblings to go on and –half the time- she made things much worse for herself than they needed to be. If she just relaxed and acted like a normal person for five consecutive minutes, he’d bet her life would run a lot smoother.

Still, there he was, standing in front of her fiancé, preparing to run him through if his grin was too wide.

“I’m sorry I hurt Henry and I’m even sorrier for hurting Regina but, I swear to you, I would die a thousand times over before I hurt either of them again.” Any trace of malice left Daniel and he looked at David with the simple truth in his eyes. He shrugged helplessly. “And I’m one of the few people who knows exactly what he’s saying with that statement.”

David huffed a laugh despite himself and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He heaved a sigh. He rallied himself to dislike Daniel, to make this easier, but it wouldn’t come. Hell, he couldn’t even hate Regina properly anymore.

He did like being David, like the softer aspects of his character, the way he more easily said what he felt, but goddamn that stupid swithering spinelessness of his.

“I believe you,” David nodded, “but we both know it wasn’t you that tried to throttle the woman you love.”

Daniel clenched his jaw and looked away.

“I just want to see her.” Daniel couldn’t look as he had to speak of it to a nearly complete stranger. “She was to be my wife, does that count for nothing?”

“No. Not for nothing.” David felt that treacherous empathy corrode his steely resolve.

He’d chew through brick to get back to Snow had they been parted as long as Daniel and Regina had…then again, Snow’s meltdowns didn’t come with a nuclear setting.

“Then let me by. I’m not a warrior, I’m unarmed, I cannot force you to step aside but…I implore you…let me see my woman.”

David clenched his jaw and fidgeted with the gleaming blade of his sword. He stopped when he realised it might be misconstrued. He shook his head.

“I can’t. Not tonight. She’s not…she’s been through the wringer tonight. She and Henry had a…thing.”

“What’s he done to her now?”

“He hasn’t done anything! He’s _never_ done anything to deserve being made to think he was crazy!” David snarled suddenly and then hauled himself under control again.

He couldn’t get mad around Daniel. Not if there really was a monster under his skin just waiting to come out and play.

“He’s one of the only people that can hurt her.”

“And you’re the other!” David stepped forward, toe to toe with Daniel and looked him right in the eye. He had to look a little up as well. Daniel was about three inches taller than he was. “Do you get it? She’s hanging on by a thread. She was scatty enough to begin with and then she brought you back and her control is completely shot! She has no idea what to do with herself, never mind you. She’s trying –desperately trying- to believe that her own son can love her and she can’t do that with you around. When you’re around, all she can see is you. All that’s in her heart, is you, all that’s in her head, is you. You’re her entire world, Daniel, and –tonight- that’s not good for her.”

Daniel swallowed hard and looked away from David. He looked sick to his stomach and David could identify. He _hated_ playing people and he was nowhere near as good at it as Regina was but…but it had to be done.

“Just give her tonight. Let her be with Henry, let her be his mother again, just for tonight.” David shrugged helplessly. “They both need it.”

Daniel was staring –glaring- at the path beneath his feet and seemed to turn to stone he was so still. David was on the verge of poking him with his sword to see if he was still conscious when Daniel’s head lifted and his eyes _burned_.

“Again.” The words seethed from him. “Again and again, it’s asked of me. To be parted from her, to give her up for the betterment of her. To let her go and live her life and be with someone else, to MARRY someone else, to be SOLD to someone else to fill the BED of someone else, to be anything but mine. Such a cruelty you weigh on me. Such a penance for the sin of loving her.” Daniel spun away and paced, tunnelling his fingers through his hair. “How can it be? How can it be that everyone else gets their true love? How can it be that True Love absolves all past mistakes bar hers?!” Daniel whipped his arm out, pointing to the light burning in the window above them.

“She waited in hell for me. For life without me was hell for her. For forty years she tempered herself in the fire of hell, her soul on fire, her heart blackened by it and now –here I am- and you stand between us again?”

“I’m just saying one more night…” David would have given anything for him to stop talking. Anything to let him go to Regina, as if it was that simple, but it wasn’t. Daniel going to her now…there was no way it could end well.

“I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE SAYING!” Daniel thundered loud enough to startle birds from their roost in the nearby trees. They applauded into the night sky, clapping into the silence that stretched taut between the two men.

“Now, listen to what I say and think about your next words.” Daniel spoke quietly and urgently to David. “Imagine that she’s Snow. Imagine having been parted from her, having finally returned to her only to find her shattered and broken. Not evil, because you know that’s not in her, she can’t be evil. She can do it, any of us can, of course we can, but she in herself is NOT evil. You feel it with every fibre of your damn _body_ that she isn’t the monster people paint her to be but she just won’t let you close enough to get her to believe that you believe, that you KNOW you’ll never stop loving her…and now she’s brought someone else into it. Now she’s brought in this good man to help her hoard her pain, a good man she knows you won’t hurt because you’re a good man yourself. She could have gone to Rumplestiltskin, she could have gone to any of her allies, she could have hidden with them but she didn’t because she knew you’d tear them apart with your bare hands to get to her.”

Daniel stepped closer and pleaded with David, he was past pride now. Past anger or fear or any of those other selfish emotions and all he wanted now was to help Regina.

“And this good man, quite because he is a good man, is protecting her with everything he has because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Even though it’s quite possibly the worst thing he could do to her.”

“She’s not Snow.” David finally mumbled.

“No, she isn’t, but if she were…would you leave?” Daniel held out his hands. “So ask me again, Prince Charming, virtuous hero, ask me again to leave the woman that needs me. Ask me to abandon her to the likes of your better judgement, because judgement is all she’s ever going to get from you. Ask me again to be parted from her one more second than I have to. Ask me again and know that you are wilfully hurting both of us, crushing us with the foolish weight of your good intentions, ask it of me again and I will go. I’ll go without a backward glance...but you should also know that you’ve revealed to me _exactly_ what kind of man you are.” Daniel dropped his hands to his sides and waited.

David pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He wanted badly to stab something just to make himself feel better…but good men didn’t go around doing that sort of thing. That was the kind of shit that had gotten his brother killed. He looked up at Daniel and opened his mouth, prepared to tell him to leave anyway, but it never happened.

“I’m not going to ask you to leave.”

Daniel blinked, clearly surprised that he’d managed to get through to the prince.

“I’m going to ask you to come back.”

Daniel frowned.

“It’s not my intention to part you. I think –if Regina ever manages to get over herself for two damn minutes- you’re probably the best thing for her, but not tonight. Not right now. So, come back. Tomorrow. Come back to her when she can actually face her. You know her, she’s so damn proud, she can’t stand anyone to see her hurting or weak, least of all someone who matters to her. So, come back in the morning.”

Daniel snorted, a rueful and sad smile tugging at his mouth. He shook his head and reached out, clapping his hand on David’s shoulder.

“Pretty words, Charming, but I see you for what you are.” Then, true to his word, Daniel skirted David and headed out of the garden. He closed the gate quietly behind him and strode off down the street. His head was down, his hands stuffed in his pockets…and he didn’t once look back.

David’s jaw clenched.

“Shit.”

 

**_The Next Morning…_ **

 

Regina awoke to knocking.

Her eyes snapped open and her body tensed. She had grown so used to the silence of the huge house that –for a moment- she forgot that she hadn’t been alone last night. For the first time in weeks, she’d had other people in the house with her.

One of which was latched around her waist like a limpet.

Another frisson of panic went through her at the weight but it faltered into nothing but befuddlement when she looked down and found Henry beside her.

The knock sounded again.

“Come in.” Regina sat up, smoothing her hair as best she could.

“Mmf.” Henry grumbled, shifting with her, apparently not interested in releasing her in the slightest.

The door was opened hesitantly and David cautiously poked his head into the room.

“Hi.” He said awkwardly.

“Good morning.” Regina blinked rapidly.

She wasn’t well enough for this. She resigned herself to being vulnerable in his eyes. She’d threaten him with unspeakable torments, so that he never told another living soul, later.

“Good afternoon.” He offered her a lopsided smile. “You slept the night away and, uh, Daniel’s here.”

Regina stilled, tensing again, but was saved from having to supply an immediate reply by Henry.

“What time is it?” He yawned and sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“A little after one.”

Regina froze in the act of smoothing down Henry’s bedhead and levelled a look at Charming.

“Shouldn’t Henry be in school?”

“He didn’t sleep last night.” David’s voice was flat, laying the blame for it fully at her feet. “He was worried about you and couldn’t rest unless he was close enough to protect you.”

“Oh.” What the hell was she supposed to say to that? “Thank you, sweetheart.” Regina smiled at Henry and he offered her a faintly embarrassed one in return.

They all knew Henry had been the one that had needed protecting, even if Regina had been unconscious, he’d still had faith that she could drive the nightmares away.

Nightmares that were getting worse and worse lately. At least last night they hadn’t been in the red room and they’d stopped when he’d come in here to sleep.

Henry didn’t appreciate lying in general but he did like that his Gramps had bent the truth a little. Knights weren’t supposed to get scared and need to sleep next to their moms in order to keep the bad dreams away.

“Are you hungry?” Regina distracted him. “I can make you some breakfast…or lunch now I suppose.”

“I’ll make it!” Henry almost hurled himself from the bed, desperate to be of some use. “You’re sick. I’ll make it. What do you want?”

“Uh…” Regina glanced over the top of Henry’s head at David who nodded subtly. He’d help as best he could. Her mouth twisted at her comments yesterday disparaging his culinary skill.

Still…she supposed she owed him some common courtesy for handling Daniel the night before.

 She dreaded to think what kind of impression Daniel now had of Regina and David’s relationship –Charming had sounded more than a little protective and possessive when it came to men lying in wait on her doorstep- but Regina had been up for neither facing Daniel in her condition nor sending him away. David had taken care of it for her while she hid behind him like a child clutching at their father’s coattails.

“Surprise me.” She smiled at Henry and was engulfed in his arms for a bone creaking hug before he dashed for the door, skipping through it when David held it open for him.

“And Daniel?” David studied her. “I can try and send him away again but he’s pretty determined to see you. I don’t think I can put him off much longer.”

Something flickered in his gaze, whatever he had said the night before to get Daniel to leave had sat ill with him.

Oh well, probably best to get this over with sooner rather than later.

“You can send him up.” Regina fidgeted with her bedsheets. “Try and keep Henry occupied, this probably isn’t going to be pleasant.”

“You’re going to be okay?”

Regina met David’s eyes and considered every layer of that question. So few words and so many meanings.

She nodded after a moment.

“I’ll be fine.” She’d decide later if that was a lie.

“Alright, I’m right downstairs. Shout if you need me.”

“Will do.” Regina heaved in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

It wasn’t even half a minute before the door swung open without even a knock and Daniel strode in.

Wow.

Power, anger, rolled off him in waves.

He strode into the room, his gaze landing on her like a physical thing, scouring her from head to toe. He didn’t say anything, just prowled to the foot of the bed and glared at her with those dark eyes of his. His chest was heaving with every breath, his eyes burned with emotions so many and swirling she couldn’t name them all and his lips were pressed together so tightly they were lined in white.

She had never seen him so furious before.

Then again, he had always been gentle to soothe her in response to her mother’s cruelty.

Regina was at a loss for words. He stunned her with his vitality.

He was SO alive. He was brimming with it. A crackling energy that she could feel from all the way across the room while he paced back and forth trying to get himself under control.

“What’s going on?” Daniel finally turned to her, having whittled his myriad of demands and questions down to something that was almost civil. Regina looked at him and he could see her plotting. Trying to figure out how best to handle him. How to keep him at a distance.

“And don’t lie.” He growled.

Again, she chose her words carefully. He was sure he was about to get the truth, but he wasn’t entirely certain she was going to be honest.

“Henry and David are making me breakfast.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. You’re ill. What’s going on?”

“I made a promise to Henry that I wouldn’t use magic. It’s causing me some problems.”

“What kind of problems?” He was at her side in an instant, studying her intently. “You look awful.”

“Thanks for the ego stroke.” Regina smirked.

“Don’t.” Daniel sat down heavily on the bed and glared at her. “Don’t laugh this off. What’s going on?”

“My magic is turning on me.”

“You’re downplaying this.”

Regina felt a flash of irritation when she couldn’t just _lie_ to Daniel like she did everyone else. Her masks were slipping. She used to be able to switch between them at will, becoming who she needed to be in order to get what she wanted, but she was becoming known.

Even Charming could sense when she was lying now. She had seen it in his eyes yesterday.

“Alright, fine, it very well might kill me. Feel better?”

“Kill you?” Daniel stared at her. “There’s a cure, isn’t there? Tell me there’s a cure.” He moved closer, seizing her by the shoulders, forcing her to meet his eyes.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Then you’d best start breaking it down for those of us who are apparently too stupid to know better.”

Regina sat back, tugging herself from his hold and glared at him.

“Well?”

“I don’t even know where to start. There are so many layers, so many factors, and I may not even be right.”

“You mean to tell me that you started playing around with forces so far beyond your ken that you can’t even explain them?”

“I didn’t say that!” Regina snapped at him. “It’s just that trying to explain to…it’s like having a whole other sense, being able to see another colour that no one else can, it’s like smelling with your ears, you can’t really explain that to someone!”

“Try.” His voice was so flat and his stance immovable. She wasn’t getting out of this.

Regina huffed a sigh and ordered her words. Considering how to explain for long moments.

“It’s like…whenever you use magic, it takes from you. There is a sacrificial component to every spell, you have to give something to get something. That’s why the ingredients for potions are often so rare, it’s because you went to all that effort to make this stew of valuable things that will henceforth be rendered useless, that is what powers the spell. You have to give something to get something.”

Daniel settled himself on the bed and watched her. Not saying anything and thinking intently.

She might have taught him to read herself, but he’d never been stupid. Once he’d learned the skill, he’d thrown himself into it and had devoured every book on every subject she’d given him. He was incredibly clever. If she was only a good enough teacher, he’d get this too.

“Of course, there comes a point when eye of salamander and the sixth finger of a seventh son just doesn’t cut it anymore. As you progress, you try bigger things until no amount of potions are going to be able to fuel your spells…at least, not by themselves.” Regina pressed her lips together and studied her hands. “It’s like a wooden doll. Starting off solid and being slowly eaten away by the magic. The more that is hollowed out, the more magic can in turn fill that space and the stronger your spells can be because there are more internal reserves to draw from.”

“What does this have to do with not using magic? Why is it hurting you now? Shouldn’t you just be full of it?”

Regina huffed a laugh. A lot of people had told her she was full of it recently.

“The problem is; I was at the height of my power when I cast the curse. The peak of magical strength. I’d reached the plateau. I would never be able to cast a greater spell than that curse. Never be able to muster more power than that.”

“Well…kidnapping the entire world is pretty damn powerful. That’s maybe a good thing.”

“Arguably.” Regina tilted her head. “Of course, using that much power, completely hollowed out the doll. Since then, however, I cast a greater spell. One more powerful than I could handle. I was able to do it because I was desperate, because I had no other choice”

Regina plucked at the bed covers and searched for another analogy. How could she properly convey how such fierce emotion had so completely eclipsed her body’s weaknesses and limitations?

“Like the stories you hear of mothers lifting toppled carriages off their children. They don’t feel the damage at the time but they often have dislocated limbs –if they’re fortunate- after.”

“What does that mean?”

Regina could tell by the look on Daniel’s face that he already understood. He knew fine and well what she meant but he needed her to say it. He needed her to make it real before he could set about fixing it.

“It means there’s too much magic in my body. No place to put it. It’s starting to eat the doll itself to make space.” Regina was frustrated at such vague explanations for a very precise thing. She knew exactly what she meant, it was happening to her, she’d have been able to explain it perfectly to Rumple or Maleficent but to anyone who didn’t use magic, it was like trying to teach a dog music.

“Well, use it then.” Daniel frowned at her. “If you have too much, get rid of the excess.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t think that will help. It’s a case of whatever doesn’t kill me will make me stronger. Using such a spell drained me and the magic is returning bit by bit but I no longer have the capacity to hold such a well of power. It will start to consume me physically instead of just…spiritually?” That wasn’t the right word but it was the closest one she had. “I’ll either be able to absorb this much magic, to adjust and improve and be all the stronger afterward, reach a new plateau and survive or I won’t. All I can do is wait.”

“There’s nothing we can do?”

Regina shook her head.

“This is because of me, isn’t it?” He looked stricken. Horrified that he had caused her pain.

“This is because of _me_.” Regina told him firmly. “I knew the risks, even desperate and maddened with grief, I knew the idiocy of the spell I was conjuring.”

“And you did it anyway?”

“Of course.” Regina shrugged helplessly and looked away from him. “What else could I do? Let you die? Let you live on in constant agony? A monster not in control of your own actions?” Regina’s voice was hoarse for the last. Of course, Whale might have damned him to that anyway.

She made a mental note to flay the doctor when she saw him next. With a _spoon_.

“At the cost of your own life?” He looked angry with her.

“That’s how true love works.” Regina dredged a smile from somewhere. “You love someone so much that you’d die for them without a second thought.”

“So you admit it.”

Regina arched a brow at him and he grinned suddenly.

“You love me. Truly.”

Regina looked away from him. She didn’t look at all happy about it.

“Yes.” She said to the window. “Unfortunately, for all concerned, I still love you with everything I have.”

Daniel was quiet for a long moment, thinking to himself.

“The spell you cast, to save me, what was it?”

“Why does it matter?”

“I’d like to know. I want to understand this.”

Regina heaved a sigh and thought about how to explain. He was supposed to be angry. He was supposed to rail and shout at her. Rage she could handle. This gentleness of his, his want to understand, to help her; it was so alien to her now. At times, she’d rather he hated her. At least that she was familiar with. Her mouth twisted.

“It’s a transference spell. I took your pain.”

“What did I get in return?”

“My health.” Regina managed a wan smile.

Which was why she was so certain she wouldn’t even survive to see Hyde again –if it was even his heart that had brought Daniel back. She’d been in good physical condition –a little stressed but that was to be expected- when she had cast the spell to take Daniel’s pain and he had been in mortal agony.

Switching the two around and then swallowing the magic that had come along with it…survive one of the two? Sure, probably, she wasn’t a weakling. Surviving both at the same time? The odds were not in her favour.

Hell, the odds were that she’d have a closed _matchbox_ funeral rather than a closed casket.

“So…you cursed yourself? Horribly.”

Regina frowned.

“Well…I suppose it could be seen that way.” Regina yelped when Daniel seized her suddenly by her waist and hauled her closer to him so that she was nearly in his lap.

Daniel tunnelled his fingers through her hair and drew her mouth up under his.

_Contact._

The magic, a sparkling shockwave of it, crackling with white lightning and black sparks, washed out of them. It thundered like a breaking sound barrier, heat and the stench of ozone rolling before it. The entire house shook, windows cracked, car alarms went off.

Daniel braced himself against the headboard, not caring, and deepened the kiss.

The magic finally waned when the explosion of true love died down to something decidedly earthier. He could feel the crackling of energy between them. Magic arced between their bodies like lightning, sparks trailing from her skin when his hand slid under her shirt and splayed against her back.

Regina’s wide eyes fluttered closed as she let him kiss her. Her hands had fisted in his shirt, intending to push him away, but had ended up drawing him closer instead. Her lips parted, letting his tongue thrust into her, taking possession of her. Her arms twined around his neck and it was a good few moments before she registered the yelling.

“Mom!” The sound of thundering feet on the stairs. “Mom, are you okay?!”

Regina pulled back from Daniel, her lips burning, and blinked up at him. Completely stunned.

He was grinning at her.

“I thought so.”

“You…?”

“Mom!”

Regina twisted around, releasing Daniel and bracing herself when Henry barrelled into her, knocking her backward so that Daniel had to catch them both.

“What was that?” Henry looked up at her, arms still locked around her waist. “What happened? It was like an earthquake and there was this big rainbow that blasted through the kitchen.”

“Uh, that was…a spell. To make me feel better.”

“Really?!” Henry rocked back from her to look up at her more easily. He grinned from ear to ear, far from the reaction she would have expected at the pronouncement of her using magic once more. “Using magic helped?”

“Sort of.” Regina looked down at her hand, blinking, causing her eyes to change colour to a royal purple with the spell. Her brows shot up at what she saw.

Light.

She hauled up her sleeve and examined the magic thrumming under her skin. Channelled along her body in a similar way that blood was pumped through veins but…she’d never seen so much of it in one person before.

Seeing magic had been one of the first things she had learned from Rumple, seeing it in a way that no one could cover, it would help her gauge the strength of an opponent with a single glance.

Rumplestiltskin’s was like the cracks in a shattered windowpane. Splitting his already golden self into smaller pieces. Cora’s was a tree branching out from the core of magic in her chest, spreading over her torso with wells and pools of it attached to the branches like fruit.

Regina’s, for she had learned the spell on herself, had been a delicate lace pattern. Intricate and thin but latticed over her entire body, a fine harness that she could hitch her spells to and take the energy uniformly from everywhere at once rather from one specific part of her. Rumple had even complimented her on it once, saying it was sinfully good and all the better for being naturally occurring. There were practitioners that changed the pathways in their bodies to a more favourable configuration, to one like Regina’s, but it was usually more costly than it was worth. Even Cora –the branch and well configuration of her power being taxing on certain parts of her for particularly large spells- hadn’t ever attempted to change hers.

Still, the delicate lace was gone and –in its place- _rivers_ of light flowed through Regina’s body. Just as widespread and latticed as before, just as beautiful, but so much brighter, so much stronger. Regina could feel it then, the power rolling under her skin, begging to be used.

She had never felt so strong. Not even when she had cast the curse had the power been so magnificent so…so natural.

“Sort of?” Henry brought her back to the matter at hand and she looked down at him. “Your eyes have changed.”

Regina’s eyes went wide when she looked at Henry. She had never had call to use the spell when it came to him. Had never thought she’d need to but…oh my.

“Mom, you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Regina closed her eyes tightly and –when she opened them again- they were back to their regular chocolate shade. “I’m…wonderful, Henry.”

“Really? You feel better? The spell worked?”

“Yes.” Regina twisted to look up at Daniel and didn’t know what to feel. She pressed her lips together and then looked back down at her son. “I think I’ll be okay now.”

“Prove it.” Henry’s face hardened. “Do magic. Show me you’re okay.”

“Not now.” Regina softened her tone when he looked mulish. “Never spell where you sleep, dear. You don’t want magic getting into your dreams, I assure you.”

“Where then?”

Regina thought for a moment and then smiled.

“We’ll go somewhere after breakfast.” Regina promised him and inhaled deeply. “Which seems to be burning.”

“Oh no, David!” Henry spun and dashed downstairs again, shouting to his grandfather to flip the pancakes.

Regina slowly turned to look up at Daniel and found him studying her intently, a smug smile tugging at his lips.

“You needn’t look so pleased with yourself. We could have torn the house down!”

“I knew the earth would move when I kissed you.” Daniel smiled at her again. It was a softer smile, the love in him plain for her to see.

“Henry could have been hurt.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight, I’m sorry.” He leaned in closer and rested his hands on her shoulders. “If you forgive me for this, I’ll forgive you for nearly getting yourself killed over me.”

“We both know I need forgiveness for so much more than that.” Regina looked away from him.

“Not from me you don’t.” Daniel reached out to her and studied her eyes. He knew she wasn’t going to stop whipping herself just yet, which just made him ache for her all the more. “Will you give me the chance to prove it? Prove that I really do love you, no matter what you’ve done.”

“Daniel...you still don’t know me. Not the woman I am now. This…broken, hollowed out doll I’ve become.”

“I know you, the core of you, you’re my other half. You make me whole. That’s all I really need to know.”

“I can’t be her anymore. I can’t be that naïve, weak, little girl. I won’t let myself. My world is far too dangerous for her, there’s a reason I became a crazed monster. I’ve made more enemies than I have ever made friends and I need to be strong enough to protect Henry from them should they take it into their heads to try something stupid.” Regina reached out and rested her hand on his chest hesitantly.

She could feel the thud of his heart –much stronger than it should have been- kicking against her palm and the pulsing seam of his silver scar on his chest thrumming against her hand even through the material of his shirt.

“I love you, Daniel.” She smiled when she felt his heart quicken at her words. “I always will, but I love Henry too and I can’t be who you both need me to be.”

“It’s not me or him, Regina.” Daniel reached up and took her hand in his, bringing it to his mouth and kissing her fingers. “I don’t need you to be anything but you and I’m going to hang around like a bad smell until you figure that out.”

Regina managed a laugh and cupped his face in her hand when he pressed it to his cheek.

“Give me a chance, Regina. I know you’re scared, I know you believe that I can’t love all of you, but I can. Just let me show you.”

“What if you don’t?” Regina’s voice was barely a whisper. “If you see me, the real me, and you hate me I…”

“Have a little faith.” Daniel tugged her into him and wrapped his arms around her. “I left you once, never again. I’m with you no matter what. Sickness and health, better and worse, I’ll be with you.” He dropped a kiss on top of her head and his tone was almost teasing when he murmured into her hair. “Though try not to go straight to hell because I’ll be right there at your side.”

Regina sobbed a laugh and buried her face in his shirt, willing herself not to cry. She felt like she’d done nothing but cry lately.

She let him hold her for a moment. Absorbing what had just happened. How he had so casually changed her and was now asking her to change again. She pressed her lips together.

People didn’t change. Not really, not truly. There had always been the darkness in there, nurtured and coaxed into maturity by her mother, but it had been in the core of her anyway. It was not in Regina’s nature to trust or to depend on other people but…she was supposed to be redeeming herself, right?

She was supposed to have a second chance. Couldn’t she at least try?

Regina lifted her head from against his chest and looked up into his eyes. She worried her lip a moment with her teeth and gathered her words. She let out a shaky breath.

“Would you…would you like to stay for breakfast?”

Daniel grinned and squeezed her tighter for a second before nodding.

“I would like that very much.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 – Rebuilding**

 

_**Behind the Mayoral Building...** _

 

“And you’re going to be right here?”

“Yes.”

Daniel watched the exchange between adopted mother and son with interest.

Regina was bent at the waist, her hands caught on her knees, practically nose to nose with Henry and his eyes never wavered from hers.

“Waiting for me?”

“Yes.”

“And then you’ll show me magic and prove you’re okay.”

“Yes.” Regina answered each of his questions with the utmost seriousness.

She’d have rolled her eyes and made a waspish retort to just about anybody else, probably even Daniel, but Henry had her limitless patience.

“And you’re not gonna do anything…weird between now and then?”

“I can’t promise that.” Regina grinned at him suddenly. “But Daniel’s staying to babysit me.”

Daniel was treated to a penetrating look from the boy, which he met without flinching.

“Okay,” Henry said at length, “we’ll be back real soon.”

“You’ll be back when you’re sure you understand your notes.” Regina straightened up and then fussed with Henry’s hair a moment. She nodded after a moment, deeming him presentable and released him. “Goodbye, Henry.”

Surprise washed over her face when Henry lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her waist in a fierce hug.

“Not goodbye.” Henry’s voice was muffled against her jacket. “See you later.”

“Very well.” Regina kissed the top of his head almost guiltily, like she wasn’t supposed to, and hugged him briefly in return. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay.” Henry pulled away, looking down at his shoes a moment. He risked a glance up at Daniel and offered a watery smile. He nodded to his mom and spun on his heels to dash for David’s truck where his grandfather waited.

Regina waved when Henry did as the truck passed them by and she folded her arms about herself, watching the tail lights disappear down the street.

“It makes me ache.”

Regina spun, her eyes tracking over him hurriedly.

“What does?”

Daniel hurried to reassure her when he realised she thought it was something to do with his heart.

“To see you like that. With him.” Daniel nodded after the truck. “You raised him…someone else’s son.”

“He should have been your son.” Regina looked away from him and stuffed her hands in her pocket. She shook herself. “Come on, I didn’t bring you here to talk about pointless things.”

Regina spun on her heel, ignoring or not seeing Daniel’s frown, and walked into the park. Daniel was on her heels and he ordered his words carefully before speaking them.

“Our children are not pointless things.”

“We don’t have any children.”

“Yet.”

Regina hunched her shoulders but was obviously picking and choosing her battles when it came to him.

“I meant that I cannot change who Henry’s biological parents are, nor does that lessen how much I care for him, speaking of what if’s in regards to that is pointless.” She spoke mechanically, trying not to feel when it came to the words but she was like a raw nerve.

She felt completely exposed and sensitive. Not only were her masks slipping, but her walls, the barriers she had up to protect herself from emotional shrapnel, were crumbling.

Still, it wouldn’t be the first time she had quietly collapsed in on herself in front of others without them being wise to it.

She had been torn in half when Daniel had died in her arms. She’d been ripped to shreds when she’d found out about Snow’s betrayal that had led to his murder and –by the time her wedding night had rolled around- there’d been nothing left to fall apart. She’d already been broken beyond repair.

“We have children, Regina. They just haven’t been born yet.”

Regina stopped in the shadows of the honeysuckle trellis and turned to look at him. Her mouth open but she couldn’t summon any words.

“Pardon?” She stalled for time.

“I said…”

“I know what you said I’m just mentally adjusting.” Regina hunched her shoulders and gathered her words in a neat row. “You’ve got to contain yourself.”

“What?”

“Daniel, I…I’ve just managed to convince myself to let you see me.”

“I already see you.”

“I mean…this morning I would have happily gone to my grave if it meant you never had to know how…how bad I am and now I think I’ll actually manage to let you in a little. I’m certainly willing to try but you’ve got to give me time.”

“I’ve been dead for forty years, Regina, I’ve wasted enough time.”

“I’m crazy and you terrify me.” Regina stepped closer to him and studied his face. “I am a flighty, paranoid, _dangerous_ woman who melts people rather than talks to them about her feelings and, Daniel, you want nothing less than my very soul. Battered, blackened and shattered as it is. It’s going to take a while for me to get my head around it so do me a favour and tell me now if you’re still interested.”

“You can’t drive me away.” Daniel leaned in so close his nose brushed hers, looking her right in the eye. “I’ll weather whatever storm you think you can muster.”

“Darling,” Regina was momentarily distracted by his mouth but rallied herself, “you’ve seen me on nothing but good days and I’ve walked on continents that couldn’t weather my storm. You’ll forgive me if I don’t take you on your word.”

“Then I shall have to let my actions speak for me.” He stood straight, looking down at her and waited.

“Hmm.” Regina turned on her heel and started off down the path again.

She heard him follow after her and resisted the urge to shiver. She didn’t like it when people were right on her heels like that but the path was too narrow for him to walk abreast of her and she had to start trusting him sooner or later.

Regina led Daniel out from under the path leading through the copse of trees and into the gardens proper. She headed straight for her tree, smiling despite herself when she saw it was as hale and healthy as she preferred it to be. There was still the gap in its canopy from where the vaunted Saviour had hacked off one of the branches so cruelly (Regina spent a moment mentally vivisecting the blonde in question) but the fruit was crisp and crimson and the leaves lush and deep green.

Daniel stood in its shadow with her and reached up, gently touching the leaves crowning the branches. He tapped one of the crimson fruit with his finger and smiled.

“I remember this.”

“Of course.” Regina took a deep breath, inhaling the sharp tang scent of apple, the fresh wind rolling in with the pine smell of the forest.

She felt the sun on her skin and kicked off her shoes, the grass was cool under her bare feet. She shrugged off her jacket next, tossing it over the stone bench nearby, and stood in her pants and black tank top.

“I brought it with me.” Regina controlled her breathing and started to ready herself for the spell she was about to work.

She wasn’t one for gods or religion, not really, but this place was sacred to her. This tree.

“Why?” Daniel turned to her.

“I’m selfish.” Regina skirted him, the shadows from the branches dappling over her skin, she watched him from under hooded lashes. “That, and it is a place of power to me. Wherever this tree is,” she traced her fingers over the texture of the bark that was as familiar as her own skin, “is where I am most at peace with my magic.”

Daniel frowned and leaned against the tree.

“I thought you said I had cured you.”

“Oh, you have, but there are…factors.” Regina offered him a smile, circling the tree. “What you did to me, I didn’t count on it, and the magic in Storybrooke is less than tame.”

“Tame?”

“Hmm.” Regina watched him turn to face her. He had that look on his face. The look that let her know he knew she was going someplace he wouldn’t like with this thread of conversation. “It’s new, wild, it doesn’t like sorcerers telling it what to do.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes.

“Regina…”

“Yes, dear?”

“You’re about to break it like a wild stallion, aren’t you?”

“‘Break’ is a poor word for it.” Regina shrugged a shoulder and folded her arms over her chest, canting herself against the tree. “I’m going to gentle it to my touch and…take a photograph of it.”

Daniel blinked at her and she smirked, of course, he had no idea what that meant.

“A photograph is…never mind. The point is; I plan to take a good long look at this magic. I plan to introduce myself and get it on my side.”

“You speak as if it’s alive.”

“It is.” Regina smirked again. “Alive as you or I though arguably even further out of control than I am.”

“So, why am I here?” Daniel circled around the tree the other way when she turned away from him, cutting off her escape.

“I wish to bask in your company?”

“Flatterer.” He grinned, but only for a moment. “You have reasons for everything now. Not sane reasons, not all the time, but reasons all the same. Why am I here?”

“I want you to see.” Her voice was quiet and her hand hesitantly came to rest on his chest. His jacket was open, the tee shirt he wore under it a deep green, she could feel the ridge of his silver scar and the thump of his ginormous heart. “I want you to see that I’m magic and I want you to see what that means.”

“You can’t drive me away.” He shook his head, still smiling, though there was a sobriety to it now.

“We shall see.” She was warring with herself, well, he supposed she had to fight with someone. She wasn’t built for peace anymore. She was trying to let herself trust him. Trying to get herself to relax that first tiny bit and believe him.

“Yes, you will.” Daniel nodded and reached up over his head, grasping a sturdy branch and letting himself swing, grinning like a fool at her.

It was just them. Regina had sent Henry and David away to pick up his homework from school so that she could do this without their audience. Whatever this was.

Still, Daniel wasn’t complaining, for the first time since he had returned, she had chosen to spend time with him.

“So confident.” Her eyes tracked over him, measuring the breadth of his shoulders and the muscles in his arms, straining against the leather of his jacket. She pressed her lips together. “There is another reason.”

“And here’s the other shoe.”

Regina ducked her head to hide her smile.

“I need you.”

“Finally, you’re catching on.” His boots scuffed the grass.

“I need you for the magic.” Regina reached out without thinking and hooked her fingers behind his belt. Her grin was something predatory and she hauled him close, her chest pressing against his. “I need you to ground me.”

Daniel’s grin disappeared and he thumped back down onto the ground, jostling her. His face was suddenly very serious and she realised why.

Ah. That had been how she had treated her other men. Her playthings. She’d treated Graham like that. Regina stepped back from him in a hurry and looked down at her toes curling in the grass. She pressed her lips together and then finally looked up at him again, trying for a business like tone.

“I need someone to hold me here, keep me connected to my body, I’ll be going…walkabout.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Not any more so that inflicting True Love’s Kiss on me without warning.” Regina spoke mildly but she was still pissed about that. She’d have rather he’d tossed aerosol cans into a fireplace. “The real danger is the elements and someone coming across me whilst I’m vulnerable.”

“And you trust me to guard you?”

Regina considered that question from all angles before answering.

“I suppose so.”

Daniel smirked. Well, he’d take what he could get.

“You honour me, my lady.” Daniel gave an exaggerated courtly bow. “What would you have me do?”

“Things you’ve likely never dreamed of.” Her eyes strayed beneath his belt buckle again before she remembered herself.

Wow, it had been a while. It would seem her newfound health came with a bonus package of friskiness. Regina shook herself and tried to muster control again.

Holding out her hands, a flash of magic burst between her palms and a rope lay coiled between her fingers. She could feel her heart pounding in her throat, her breath shivering in and out of her chest she was so wound up.

“I need you to bind me.” She thrust the rope towards him and he warily took it. “To the tree.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Looks like I’m not the only one with trust issues.” Regina snarked before she could stop herself and rubbed at the bridge of her nose when she realised it.

“I don’t trust magic.”

“Then you don’t trust me, dear, because I am magic. Through and through. If I wasn’t before, I am now. You saw to that this morning.”

Daniel’s jaw clenched and he measured the rope in his hands.

“What does it do? This spell of yours.”

“It’s like training a horse, you have to speak to magic in a way it understands.” Regina hunched her shoulders in a shrug. “I have to show it that I’m part of it. The tree is a hardwired into the magic that now races through Storybrooke like blood does your veins. If I’m connected to the tree then the magic will see me as being connected to it and then it won’t fight every single thing I ask of it when I try to work a spell.”

“And it won’t hurt you?”

“The risk is minimal.”

“Minimal?”

Regina resisted the urge to growl. Her life had been a lot easier when nobody cared about her. At least then she could get things done without stopping to play twenty questions every five minutes.

“The reason you’re here is to release me from the tree if I have need of it.”

“How do I know if you’ll have need of it?”

“Daniel, if this spell goes against me, you’ll KNOW.” Regina smirked and took a step back, leaning against the tree, she looped her arms back so that her wrists could be bound behind her back around the trunk and smirked. “Well?”

Daniel didn’t look happy about it, but he circled the tree, looping the rope around Regina’s wrist.

It was fine. She assured herself. Absolutely fine. Daniel wasn’t going to hurt her, he was there to warn her if someone untoward turned up while her focus was inward and he wasn’t going to hurt her.

Daniel’s hand closed around her other wrist and she freaked the fuck out.

“No!” Regina flinched her wrist out of his hold and lunged away, yanking hard against his hold on her other wrist.

“Regina?” Daniel released her immediately –as he would any flighty filly- and looked at her with concern.

Regina let out a slow breath, closing her eyes and forcing herself to stay exactly where she was.

“I’m sorry. Habit.” Regina pressed her back to the tree once more and forced her arms behind it again. “Any time I’ve been tied to a length of wood has not been pleasant for me.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure that I’m the right one for the job?”

“Daniel, if anyone else were to try and tie me to this tree, I would fillet them with an errant thought.”

“Right.” Daniel fashioned a quick knot about her wrists and hoped that it was mostly a symbolic gesture because –if she bolted again- she’d pull free with no problem at all.

“Tighter, Daniel, it has to have me at its mercy or it won’t believe me.”

Daniel growled under his breath and released the first knot, retying another.

She made him do it three more times before her struggles were truly in vain and she couldn’t get free without his help.

“Alright,” Regina tossed her hair out of her eyes and huffed out a breath, “stand where I can see you?”

The panic was abating, becoming more manageable, she was getting used to the idea that being tied to a post didn’t necessarily mean firing squads.

Daniel loomed in front of her, his hands resting gently on her hips, his eyes filled with concern for her and she managed a smile.

“It’s going to be alright.”

“I thought that was supposed to be my line.” Daniel smirked.

“Yes, well, remind me to show you the Emancipation Proclamation and we’ll talk about gender roles in relationships.” Regina laughed at his puzzled look. “Daniel, you are a delight.”

He grinned at that and studied her.

“And you as well.” Daniel cupped her face and kissed her on the forehead. Sensing, as strung out as she was, that anything more intimate would rattle her even further.

“It’s fine.” Regina smiled and inhaled the calming scent of him. “I’m going now. I won’t be long.”

“You’d better not. I’ll tear this place apart to get you back if I have to.”

Regina smiled and inhaled a deep breath. The comforting thing was; she knew he would.

Summoning the spell she’d need, Regina took a moment to centre herself, and submerged herself in the roiling magic of Storybrooke.

Regina sank into herself, measuring the flow of power through her body, attuning her thoughts to the pulse and throb of it like someone dancing in time with the beat of their own heart. She leaned back –the sensation of bark against her skin coming from very far away- and tapped into the magic flourishing in her tree.

She could feel it, so wonderful, so wild.

The apple tree drank in magic in much the same way as a normal tree would synthesise sunlight. It absorbed it into the bark, the sap, but it did not stop there. The tree channelled the magic not for its own ends as it would light but into the ground. From the leaves and the knotted branches, down the trunk into the twisted roots and bleeding into the earth itself.

Regina focussed on that magic, that familiar pulse, and latched onto it. From then it was a small matter to clamber down it, sinking into the earth with the magic that grew in veins and seams like gold in a mine.

She eased herself into it, into the network and –with a flash that exploded in her mind- she saw it. All of it. She felt the magic in her own body roil and squirm. She struggled to hold it in check, wrestling with it and –for the first time in decades- got a full look at it.

With the bespelling of her eyes, the same spell that had let her see Henry’s magic, it was like looking in a mirror. She could see her magic, but warped and only bits of a time. With this spell, looking at the magic of Storybrooke, she saw her whole self. Every fractured piece of it.

Suddenly she knew what to do.

Regina’s eyes snapped open.

“Untie me.”

Daniel didn’t waste time asking questions and worked on the knots binding her to the tree instead.

As soon as she was free, Regina pounced on her jacket and yanked out a sheaf of papers. She fumbled a quill and inkpot as well and sank down onto her knees. Unfolding the papers she revealed them to be several sheets of printer paper taped together. Each of them a piece of the human skeleton, life size, and she hurriedly began to sketch over it with the quill and ink. She blew magic onto the quill every so often and it changed colour.

Over and over, she drew symbols and markings over every bone of the body, layers and layers of them until the paper was sodden with different colours of ink. None of which bled together or turned into the muck coloured soup you’d expect of mixing colours.

“Regina…what’s this?”

“You might have given me my health, but you’ve given me a lot more power too.” Regina murmured, shoving her hair back from her face and streaking ink over it. She didn’t notice. “All of that power comes with all kinds of backlash that I could really do without.”

“I’m not apologising for saving your life.”

“Quite alright, dear, I forgive you.” Regina continued to sketch over the skeleton drawing. More and more symbols and annotations added to the bones. She sat up, resting on her heels, and looked up at him. “I looked at myself in there. For the first time ever, I saw myself as I am. Magically speaking.” Regina looked down at the skeleton spread out in front of her. “They broke me.”

“Who did?” Daniel was partially confused but the mention of her being hurt settled him into a happily homicidal mood.

“Rumplestiltskin, my mother, they shattered me so that I could be their pet monster.” Regina shook her head. “I never realised it until right now but…they literally broke me to their will.”

“Has it healed?” Daniel’s voice was soft.

“You don’t heal from wounds of the soul. Not if you don’t know they’re there.” Regina stood and bent over the drawing, plucking at the ink with her fingers. It took a couple of tries, like trying to find the start of a roll of sticky tape, but she managed to peel the ink away.

Daniel stepped back as the gossamer thing was peeled away from the paper to billow and waft from Regina’s fingers. It hung in front of her like some sort of macabre lingerie.

“And now you know they’re there?”

“Well…you’ve got to cut out the rotten scar tissue before new can grow back in.”

“Regina…” Daniel didn’t like where this was going.

A feeling compounded when she released the spectre of the ink skeleton and it pounced on her.

Regina tensed, the thing she had conjured wrapping around every inch of her and constricting, biting into her skin. The ink pierced her from every angle, tearing into her like a cheese wire through butter.

“Regina!” Daniel lunged towards her but stopped just short of touching her, not knowing if he would make it worse.

Regina made a choked sound of pain and one leg buckled. She sank to one knee and gasped out a ragged breath when the spell tore through her skin and drilled into her bones. Regina collapsed onto her hands as well, gasping and writhing in ruthlessly restrained movements.

She struggled madly against it, despite trying to order herself to relax into it and let it happen. It was for her own good.

The spell ripped away and then she did scream. The ink peeled out of her flesh and bone, its hooks having dug into the cancerous growths on her soul, tearing lumps out of it as it did. It flopped and flailed onto the grass and Regina sagged back, sitting on her heels, her head thrown back, panting at the grey sky overhead.

“What the hell is that?!” Daniel’s arm slid around her waist and he hauled her up off the grass and dragged her away.

The ink skeleton wobbled, gelatinous and half real, over the lawn. It hovered several inches off the ground, dark streamers and entrails of magic stringing from it onto the grass, blackening the greenery.

“My collar. The yoke my mother fitted me with.” Regina panted, letting herself sag against Daniel for a moment, just for a moment, before forcing herself to stand on her own two feet. Raising her hand, a ball of fire roared to life above her palm.

Without another word, she destroyed it.

A piece of her own soul, Daniel realised as he watched it burn. She had made a spell to rip a chunk out of her own soul and then she had destroyed them both with fire. Burned them to ash.

Daniel was horrified for her.

What she’d just done and so calmly…and that had just been the black ink.

“Regina, stop!”

“It’s fine, Daniel.” Regina turned, putting the next layer of spells she had drawn on the skeleton between them. It wafted, seeming lighter and brighter than the other spell.

“It’s not fine! You just tore a chunk out of your soul!”

“It will grow back.”

“It’s your SOUL!”

“I know.”

She was so calm, it was infuriating and he couldn’t even stop her when she released the second skeleton spell. Daniel lunged, trying to claw it away from her but his hands passed harmlessly through it.

This spell settled over Regina’s skin and sank beneath her flesh with considerably less pain. It wasn’t until it reached her bones that she stiffened and shuddered. There was a high pitched sound like –exactly like- a dentist’s drill cutting into bone and Regina let out a harsh breath when it was done.

“And what was that?!” Daniel demanded of her.

“Wards. I needed to lay them.”

“On your bones?!”

“Best place for them. Like stripes on a tiger. I ‘look’ like Storybrooke magic now.” Regina smirked tiredly but her colour was already getting better. She was recovering quickly. “It will heed me when I call.”

“You tore out a piece of your own soul.”

“I know.” Regina nodded. “The same way a doctor would cut a tumour out of a cancer patient.”

“Your soul had tumours?”

Regina sobered when she saw the horror, the desolation, the understanding in his eyes. She smiled wanly.

“And now you see.” Regina turned away from him and folded up the now blank sheets of paper.

Daniel was at a loss for words.

Her own soul. She had shredded it like it was nothing. Cut out a piece of it and burned it alive. Without flinching.

Daniel sightlessly watched her straighten up and pull her shoes back on. She shrugged on her jacket and stuffed the roll of papers back into her pocket alongside the quill and ink.

“Well,” she spoke without looking at him, “I suppose we know now at least.”

“Know what?” Daniel’s voice was hollow.

“That baring my soul to you really will drive you away.” Regina summoned a tight smile for him and stepped away when he reached for her under the pretence of not having seen. “Come along, Henry will be waiting.”

Daniel watched her go, his mouth open to call out to her, but unable to summon the words.

“Damn it.” Daniel muttered to himself when she strode out of the gardens, her head held high, proud as ever. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and swore more colourfully. “Damn you, woman, and your parlour tricks…and damn me for taking them in.”

Daniel huffed out an angry breath. Angry at himself. He shoved his hands in his pockets and started after her with a long and ground eating stride.

She wasn’t going to drive him away.

She _wasn’t_.

 

**_The Castle Ruins..._ **

 

“What are we doing here?” Henry looked up at his mother.

David had driven them to the outskirts of town, to the site where Henry’s castle had once stood and both David and Daniel stood back a ways, leaning against the hood of the car and watching whatever show she was about to put on.

“You said you wanted to see my magic. Here’s your chance.” Regina was just standing there, looking out to sea, studying the horizon.

“Oh.” Henry followed her gaze and frowned. He couldn’t see anything. “Why here though?”

“It’s on the outskirts of town, so if I blow something up by accident it won’t hurt anyone else.” She glanced at Henry and flashed him a grin. “Don’t you worry, I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

“Blow something up?!” Henry’s eyes widened. “Cool!”

Regina gave him a somewhat exasperated frown and then turned her attention back to the horizon.

“So…” Henry drew out the word after a few more moments of silence. “Are you gonna do something?”

“You mean you can’t feel it?” Regina glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, studying him hard for the answer.

Henry’s face became thoughtful for a moment. As always, thinking carefully before giving an answer. His mother’s questions were never without reason and she always demanded that he answer her to the best of his ability. Which was why he usually went with the truth.

“I can hear bells.” Henry looked about himself. “Sorta like windchimes.” He searched for the source of the sound and looked up at Regina when she chuckled a little nervously.

“So you can hear it.” She murmured to herself.

“Hear what?”

“Magic.” Regina finally lifted her hands as if prepared to catch something. “I’ve been working quite a powerful spell for the last five minutes.”

“Really?” Henry looked up as if expected her to summon lightning. “Doing what?”

The ringing got louder. Even against the crashing of the waves against the shore, Henry could hear the bells. Chiming like music. Beautiful and haunting.

If Henry had ever thought about it, he would not have associated such a nice sound with his mother’s magic. He’d have picked howling, like the wind through the trees, the kind of sound that could be mistaken for screaming if you weren’t careful. Henry was glad he was mistaken.

“Mom,” Henry tried again when she didn’t answer him, he had to raise his voice to be heard over the crash of the surf. “What are you doing?”

“Recycling.” Regina frowned ever so slightly, not in effort but in concentration.

Stepping forward, Regina stooped and then surged up to her full height, pushing her arms up into the air as if lifting a heavy weight.

The sea roared in answer, a huge wave cresting against the beach, a wall of water rearing straight up and splashing against something that Henry couldn’t see.

Henry staggered back a step in surprise, his eyes flown wide. A laugh burst from him in delight. This was better than his comic books.

Regina chuckled when he laughed.

“Oh, Henry, you haven’t seen anything yet.” Regina dropped her arms to her sides, content the sea was going to stay where it was in such an unnatural position, and whistled. She snapped her fingers and pointed to the ground where Henry’s castle had stood.

A monster came out of the sea.

Henry yelped and Regina caught him by the shoulders, holding him in front of her and making him stay and look.

“Be afraid of the caster if you must, Henry, of what can be done with magic, but never fear the magic itself. I will never hurt you.”

Henry relaxed under her hold and watched the monster shake itself like a dog, rattling water everywhere in great arcs and wheels.

It was huge, the size of a ship. It _was_ a ship. At least one.

An old galleon, triple masted, that had sunk off the coast at least two hundred years ago. Regina had called it, reshaping it into a long animal shape so that it could swim through the water and then summoned it to the shore. She’d had to use the water’s currents to help, which was the reason for the massive wave.

Regina lifted her hands from Henry’s shoulders and pushed out, gentling the wave back into the sea so that it didn’t set off any undesired chain reactions on the other side of the world. She hadn’t heard of the butterfly effect until she had come to this land, but there was no reason to take chances.

The ship, now in the form of something between a dog and a dinosaur, the three masts running along the ridge of its spine, the figurehead of the ship, a mermaid, spearing from its head like a horn. It moved towards them at Regina’s silent command.

The sound was tremendous, centuries old wood worn smooth by the ocean, the creak and snap of tattered sails slapping wetly in the wind, the great pounding booms it made with every step of its colossal weight.

“It appears to be alive, but it is not, do you understand?” Regina spoke to Henry even as she made the creature bark with a thunderous sound that echoed back on them and wag its tail. “I am commanding it to act like this. It is an illusion.”

“Okay.” Henry’s voice was low, quietened by awe.

He had known his mom was powerful, she couldn’t have taken over the kingdom and fought Snow and Charming for all those years without being powerful, but he had never imagined _this_. Never thought she could summon shipwrecks from the sea and turn them into dragon dogs.

She wasn’t even sweating.

Regina dropped the animation enchantment and the grinding sound of the ship settling in on itself as it stilled into a reformed statue slowly died to silence.

“Now,” Regina lifted her hands again, “let me show you what a _real_ castle looks like.”

The magic washed out of her with the sound of a thunderous chime. Henry imagined this must be what the bells of Notre Dame had to sound like. He clapped his hands over his ears at the deafening sound that was in his head rather than his ears and watched in stunned silence as the ship flew apart.

Every rope, timber and sail lost its connection with everything else and Regina picked the ship apart down to its composite pieces. Right down to the nuts and bolts, the barrels left in the hold, the bones of the fallen crew, picked clean by fish decades ago.

Those she spirited away. As cool as Henry would no doubt think skull and crossbones were, she doubted he’d feel so enamoured with them if the bones really had belonged to someone. Even someone he didn’t know.

She was aware of Henry stepping away from her, but not fleeing as he had tried to do before, turning to watch her instead. He studied her rather than what she was doing and Regina cast a glance at him.

“Not enjoying the show?”

“You’re awesome.” Henry laughed and Regina grinned.

Henry watched her direct the magic like conductors controlled music. The analogy was made all the more accurate by the accompanying chimes and rhythms of the spells she summoned from the depths of her mind. Her fingers made complex gestures at times and she frowned with effort at others, tilting her head and pondering something before smirking and fixing the problem.

Henry smiled up at her when she dropped her arms to her sides and let out a slow huff of effort. She nodded once in satisfaction at a job well done and turned to Henry.

“Well? What do you think?”

Henry turned to see what she had done and gaped.

“Wow.” He had liked his castle before. Loved it in fact. A place he could go to in order to think away from the smothering presence of Regina and everyone else.

Just a few weeks ago, he’d have been livid if she had changed the castle. If she had rebuilt it into something of hers, but that wasn’t what she had done. Henry could see the basis of his original castle in the new design, but it was so much bigger, so much grander.

It had a drawbridge and a moat, it was three stories high and then there were the turrets on top of that. She had used the old sails and dyed them with magic to make brightly coloured flags that snapped and billowed in the wind. She’d pulled shells and stones up from beneath the sand to make a little highway leading up to the drawbridge and had conjured a sand sculpture of a sea monster she had once seen to rear up out of the moat.

“Mom, it’s amazing!” Henry threw himself at her and hugged her about the waist tightly.

Regina laughed and shook off the fatigue, which was far less than she had been expecting.

She had wanted to do something for him, something big and impressive. Something that would prove to him that magic wasn’t inherently evil. She had wanted him to see that it was good.

Especially since he was probably going to start manifesting his own any day now.

Regina sobered a little at the thought but brushed it aside when Henry grinned up at her. She smiled in return and smoothed his hair down.

“Why don’t you go and explore?”

“Yes!” Henry turned to dash away and made it only three steps before he turned and ran back to her, gripping her hand in his. “Come with me!”

Regina had little choice but to obey as Henry dragged her towards the castle. With a wave of her hand, she lowered the drawbridge for them.

“How will I do that?”

Regina looked down at him and smiled, knowing what one of her first lessons to him would be.

She was more than a little nervous at the prospect of her son coming into power. Especially such a power that it belted from his skin like the corona of a star. She was going to have to do something about that too. Magic was a dangerous thing, not just for what it could do to the caster, but for the power it represented.

Henry would be incredibly valuable to certain people if they ever figured out his potential.

Regina was nervous at the thought of being his magical tutor, her lessons under Rumple had been far from kind at times, but she knew she wouldn’t trust anyone else with it either.

The irony that she had been so eager to do it just a few weeks ago was not lost on her.

She was also incredibly aware that she had just torn out pieces of her own soul and might not be in any shape to be teaching anyone anything. She had gone through a massive change and –for the first time- she actually felt the damage. She could feel the gaps where there shouldn’t be…she could feel her body drawing in magic from the very air around her to fill them.

Power, power was coming to her from all sides and she could only hope the spells she’d carved into her bones were enough to keep it in check because she just didn’t know any more…she needed to go back to her reading.

She had brought so many things with her in the vault. So many trophies from magicians and sorcerers she had slain without much effort. Books, scrolls and crystals etched with ancient knowledge.

She knew enough, she knew plenty of theory to get by, but not nearly enough for this.

Rumple had taught her enough to handle her power back then and she hadn’t bothered to learn more. Goddamn he and her arrogant stupidity.

She had relied on her power, on brute force, back in the Enchanted Forest and now it was going to come back to bite her if she wasn’t careful.

Where she’d had a mallet before, there was now a jackhammer –perhaps a wrecking ball depending on how well she healed- she was beginning to think that the most dangerous thing she might face would be herself. She had to be more informed, she had to know what she was doing.

Regina needed to go back to school.

Unfortunately for her, the only tutors she knew of that were older than her and just maybe a little more powerful now, were Rumplestiltskin and the Blue Fairy.

Which did less than fill her with enthusiasm.

Still, that was not for this afternoon. She could do nothing until he manifested, all she could do was prepare.

She smiled down at Henry and squeezed his hand.

“Oh, I’m sure we can figure something out.”

 

_**That Night...** _

 

“Henry really is a sweet boy.” Daniel looked down at Regina as she walked beside him and ached to hold her.

He felt like he’d taken one step forward and then seven steps back.

She had been wary and standoffish with him all afternoon. Actively avoiding him and ignoring him when she could and only mollifying her tone a little when David, Prince Charming, had said something to her and looked pointedly at Henry.

Daniel had hurt her. She had surprised him and caught him off guard with the soul burning thing, alright, she had horrified him.

What was worse, she had seen it. As plain as day in his face, she had seen how he had reacted and now she was slipping away from him.

He’d had one chance to prove to her that he wouldn’t run from her and he’d shied from the first jump. He was going to have to work doubly hard now just to convince her that she should give him another chance.

He hadn’t realised fully quite how skittish and terrified she was of love, of him, and he’d paid the price for his arrogance. He couldn’t very well believe in True Love between them if she didn’t believe she was worthy of it.

And he had no idea how to prove it to her that she was.

They were on their way back to her house. David and Henry had gone to theirs with the truck and Daniel had offered to walk Regina home. To make sure she got in alright.

Daniel was lucky that Henry had talked her into it, she’d been dead set on refusing. Daniel made a note to ally himself with Henry more often.

“Yes, he is.” She smiled softly but still refused to look at him.

She was so nervous and he hated it. He remembered when the only time she wouldn’t be nervous was with him.

“You did a wonderful job of raising him.”

“At least somebody thinks so.” Regina smirked but her heart wasn’t really in it.

“Everybody else sees it too. They just don’t want to admit that it was you that did it.”

Regina laughed and shook her head but didn’t say anything else.

“They just don’t know you like I do.”

“Nobody knows me.” Regina spoke quietly and he resisted the urge to growl.

“I do.”

“No, you think you do.” She glanced at him, just for a second and then hurriedly away. “Forty years, Daniel. Forty years without you. I’ve been without you a lot longer than with you.”

Daniel watched her, his heart breaking. He hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d never wanted to leave her. Now she was so close but still miles away. Why couldn’t she reach out to him? Just a little bit.

He knew he’d disappointed her with his reaction earlier but couldn’t she just _try_?

“It’s difficult to reconcile it as being real, you know.” Regina glanced at him again. “You being back. Alive. I spent so much time without you and…my entire life changed, _I_ have changed.” Her tone lowered a little. “Which you saw quite clearly this afternoon.”

“You’re still the woman I love.” Daniel noticed the way she cringed away from that a little and refused to back down from it. The one thing he did know was that he wasn’t giving up. “Inside your heart you know it’s true.”

“Yes,” she admitted, “but I’m so much more –and less- than I was then. I’ve got so much baggage hanging off me…I knew you’d run when you saw it.”

“I didn’t run. You ran.” Daniel’s voice was hard. “You doubt me so easily. You have no faith in anything anymore, do you?” That hurt him, not just because she didn’t believe him or in him, but that she couldn’t believe in anything.

“Lifetime of experience. You might have been the elder the first time around but I am very much the older woman now.” She smirked.

“I’ve let you down twice now, I died on you and then I flinched this afternoon, never again.” Daniel hunched his shoulders in a restless shrug. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to say. I’ll tell you that every day for the rest of our lives if I have to. If it will prove me right, if it will let you believe in someone, I’ll sing it from the rooftops.”

“Don’t do that, dear, you’re a terrible singer.”

Daniel laughed and she managed to smile.

“Well, the sooner you accept that I’m not going anywhere, the happier we’ll all be.”

“I can’t take that chance, Daniel.” They crossed the road towards her house.

He held open the gate and she slipped through it.

“Not on being happy. It’s always ripped away from me one way or the other. I get more and more broken every time and…I won’t survive it again.”

How could she tell him? How could she tell him he might have a monster inside him? That they matched in that way. The difference being that she knew all about hers. She at least was equipped to fight it and –now- she was probably going to live long enough to see him succumb to his.

She knew she was a coward for being unable to give herself to him because of it but she was too damn scared to do anything else.

“So, that’s it? You’re just going to give up?” Daniel stepped up onto the porch with her and spread his hands wide. “What happened to true love being the most powerful magic there is?”

“Of course it is.” Regina rummaged in her purse for her keys. “That’s why it destroyed me so completely. I have no defence against it.”

“Regina, we could be so happy together.” Daniel stepped closer to her and she stepped back.

“I know.”

“Then why won’t you try?!” Daniel ducked his head so she had to look at him. “You took over an entire world and cursed it but you won’t try to let me in? Not even a little?”

“The rest of the world is _nothing_ , Daniel. Nothing compared to you. It was easy, so easy. Even ripping out my father’s _heart_ was easy because it was for you and you weren’t there to see it. You’ve crippled me. I can’t do anything without thinking about how you’ll view it.” Regina sucked in a sudden breath, trying to calm herself and not doing a very good job of it. “You’re a weakness I can ill afford.”

“Love is NOT weakness and I’m not judging you.” Daniel reached out slowly and carefully took her hand in his, silently begging her not to pull away. She didn’t. “I want you to move on. Stop living in the past and have a future. With me.”

“How can you say that?” Regina pulled her hand away and went back to rummaging for her keys. “You don’t have a present, here, all you have is your past. You haven’t come to grips with this land, this world. You haven’t seen what it has to offer. Once you see, once you’re settled and you know me and can measure what I am objectively then…you’ll see and then you’ll leave and it will HURT.” She finally found the key and lifted it out, watching the others swing from the loop. “I’m selfish, I know, but if I never really have you back then maybe –just maybe- I can survive it.”

“That’s horseshit!” Daniel tunnelled his hands through his hair and turned away from her, huffing out a harsh breath. “You’ve ALWAYS had me and I’m not going anywhere. The rest of this world is dull and awful without you. It stinks of…plastic and oil and smoke. There’s metal everywhere and not enough green. It’s drab and disgusting and the people even more so. I will never be at home here, not without you.”

He turned back to her and stepped close, looking her right in the eye in the dim shadow of the porch. He spoke softly but no less powerfully for it.

“You’re my home, Regina.”

Her breath caught and, for a moment, he thought he had her. He thought he’d gotten through to her but then she shook her head.

“You can’t pin your happiness on me, Daniel. That’s what I did to you and it ruined me. I won’t be responsible for yours.”

“Tough.” Daniel was unmoved. “That’s the way I’m built.”

“Daniel…”

“No, we’re done talking about this. You’re being stubborn and stupid and you can’t drive me away. I’m going to be here. Waiting. When you figure it out, I’ll welcome you with open arms. Just as I always have and just like I always will.”

Regina opened her mouth, to protest he was sure, but Daniel was done with listening to her excuses.

He stepped forward, if she wouldn’t listen then he would show her.

His mouth crashed down over hers in a stunning kiss. Just as powerful as the one they had shared that morning. He tipped forward, walking her backwards until he could pin her against the door.

Regina’s back hit the wood, sandwiched between it and Daniel and she whimpered. She was powerless against him. His mouth moved over hers, his tongue lancing between her lips and sliding against her own. One hand splayed against the wood of the door, the other stealing around her waist and hauling her against him.

Regina’s back arched and her arms wound around his neck. The keys and her purse clattered to the floor. Her fingers tangled in his hair and she surrendered completely to him. It was different, so different to the other kisses they’d shared.

When they were young and in love and everything was still innocent, the kisses were sweet and hopeful. Now, decades of hurt and turmoil later, her teeth sank into his lip and his fingers tightened in her hair. Her nails scraped down the side of his neck and she groaned into him.

Back then, Daniel had been older, a worldly twenty five to her eighteen. She’d known there had been at least one girl before her, he hadn’t loved her the same way he’d loved Regina, but she’d known about her and been a little jealous anyway, he’d been so much more experienced than her…the tables had turned.

She couldn’t handle the heart part of it, she couldn’t tell him how much she loved him or how much she had missed him or even how terrified he made her feel just by being close to her, but maybe she could show him.

She could have wept when he pulled away from her.

“No.” He gasped. “Not like this.”

Regina tensed. What did he mean? She was too broken? He needed her to be gentle and sweet as she had been? That wasn’t going to happen. She had very quickly learned that sex was a weapon and a tool when love wasn’t involved. She’d never made love to anyone.

Had sex, certainly, fucked a man, most definitely, but she hadn’t loved any of them.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Daniel spoke softly and stroked her cheek, they were both breathing hard into one another’s mouths they were still so close. “When I have you, it’s going to be heart and soul along with your body. I’m _different_. You can’t just give me part of yourself and hope that will be enough. I’m not going to settle for less than all of you and you’re not either. Not ever again.”

Regina could only lean against the door, panting, trying to figure out what had just happened.

“You WILL be happy, Regina, and it won’t be an ending.” Daniel pressed a soft and almost chaste kiss to her lips. “It’s going to be our beginning.”

Then he turned away from her, walked down the garden and out of the gate.

Regina’s knees buckled and she slithered down the door to slump onto the front steps. She pressed shaking fingers to her lips and tried not to whimper.

That man was going to destroy her.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13 – Strategies and Silverware**

 

Regina stood by the French doors in her kitchen and willed away the headache forming behind her eyes.

She had been trying, for the better part of the night and morning, to work out the safest and least intrusive spell to shield Henry –in a magical sense- from others.

She had spent the night previous ferrying the books and tomes of magic she had in her vault to the mansion. Most of them were open at various pages and spread out over the kitchen counters and yet more on the floor even.

The problem was not in the shielding charm, that was simple enough. Something of Henry’s that could be imbued with the power she needed of it and then he just had to wear it. Which would probably be a challenge in and of itself because jewellery was ‘girly’. Still, a jewel would work best. That or metal. Silver? He’d probably wear silver without too much hassle.

The problem arose when she had to fuel the spell. Something so long lasting and renewing as a shield –even just an illusory one rather than one needed to repel physical or malicious force- would need a constant power source. The usual tactic was to tie it to the body of the wearer, in minor cases you could even use the heat given off by the body for the fuel. The wearer would be more susceptible to chills, but that was about it.

However, Regina didn’t want this impacting on Henry in any way at all. Introducing magic to him, even such a small draw, could force him to manifest his powers before he was ready and ‘disastrous’ didn’t quite cover the events that would probably follow.

The next obvious course of action would be to fuel it herself, easy enough if they had lived in the same house still –Regina ignored the pang that gave her- but Henry was quite often across town and visiting her, she suspected, would not be a regular thing for quite some time if at all. Another pang was ruthlessly swept aside. She could wallow in self-pity later.

The fear that Gold or –worse- the faeries saw what Henry could be, was a drum in her head that she couldn’t silence. She wanted this done to today if at all possible.

Sunlight? No. Storybrooke’s weather had an annoying habit of being perennially grey. Kinetic movement? Hmm, maybe, but Henry would often sit and read for hours at a time then the simple rhythm of his ribs moving with every breath would be forced to work twice as hard to breathe as well as fuel the spell…

“Think, you fool!” Regina spun and lashed out, sending the dry marker in her hand flying across the room and bouncing off the wall to clatter to the floor.

The shadows from her writing scrawled over the glass of the French windows moved over the skin of her face and neck when she turned to scowl at her equations. She’d gotten lazy. As a student she probably could have figured this out within hours.

Then again, she’d have had Rumple’s help…

Regina shook her head sharply. The last person she wanted to know what she was working on was the imp. Well, it was a tie between the Dark One and Mother Inferior. Either of their influences could be disastrous on Henry and she was honestly at a loss to pick which would be worse.

Regina planted her hands on her hips and glared at the window she was using as a blackboard. Symbols and scribbles swirled over the glass, backlit by the soft grey light of the sky outside.

She was giving serious thought to flinging one of her dining room chairs out the window just to make herself feel better when a sharp knock sounded at the door.

She turned and frowned at the interruption. Who could that be?

Regina prowled thoughtfully out into the hallway and approached the door. If it was another angry mob, promise or no, she very well might dangle them from the power lines on Main Street by their underwear.

Throwing open the door, Regina opened her mouth to send whoever it was scurrying with a few well placed growls and glares and stilled in surprise.

“David?”

“Hi.” The prince shifted his weight and waved at her needlessly.

“Hello.” Regina frowned at him when he didn’t say anything else. “Would you like to come in?”

“Yes.”

Regina, still puzzled, stepped back from the door and let him in.

“I’m in the kitchen.” She beckoned him through after closing the door behind him. “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes, please.”

Regina frowned. He was being awfully meek. She was immediately suspicious. What had he done?

Rather than demanding to know, Regina let him stew in it for a while. She went about making some coffee instead. She could feel David studying her as she moved around the kitchen. He looked hurriedly away when she turned and met his eyes.

“So,” David turned and nudged one of the books on the counter, “a little light reading?”

“I’m working on something.” Regina settled back against the counter and watched him watch her. “It’s giving me some problems.”

“For Daniel?”

Regina tensed a moment. She had considered working on something for Daniel’s possible Hyde problem –but Henry took precedence.

Hyde _might_ come screaming out of Daniel’s chest any moment but Henry definitely needed a shield charm as soon as she could muster it.

“No. Actually. For Henry.” She pressed her lips together and considered what to tell him. After a moment, she realised she had to. He was Henry’s grandfather, no matter how much she might wish otherwise, he had a right to know.

“Is something wrong with him?” David immediately switch to high alert and Regina hurriedly shook her head.

“No. Not urgently. I saw something yesterday,” Regina pondered how best to put it and decided just to go for broke, “I saw Henry’s magic.”

“Henry has magic?” David’s tone was immediately and carefully neutral.

“Everybody has magic.” Regina shrugged a shoulder. “To varying degrees. The difference between sorcerers and everyone else is the network within their bodies that channels the magic…” Regina sighed when she saw David just stare at her blankly.

This was another smelling with ears thing.

“I’m going to use magic on you, it’s not invasive, it won’t hurt you, okay?” Regina closed the distance between them and held her hands out to him.

“What are you going to do?”

“Words are not the best way of communicating this. Trust me when I say you’ll understand a visual representation easier.”

“Trust you?”

“You have more experience with trusting others. You’ll have an easier time of it than I would, even if I am a raving psychopath.”

David studied her hands a moment and slowly took them in his own.

“I’ve never heard you rave.” He managed a nervous smirk and she had to admit she was surprised.

She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she never would have trusted him if their situations had been reversed. She’d have laughed in his face.

“Alright, civilian magic looks like this.” Regina’s fingers tightened around his hands and the spell thrummed into life.

“You just turned me into a nightlight.” David jolted when his skin, his whole body, flared brightly in a pulsing light. It brightened and dimmed in time with the thudding of his heart.

“It won’t last long.” Regina managed a smirk. “This is a sorcerer’s magic.”

Regina closed her eyes briefly and projected the image of the map of magic running through her body.

“Whoa.” David’s brows flew up and he blinked at the bright light.

His was a nice light, a gentle bioluminescence, tinged in gold, thrills of blue sparking here and there. Regina’s was…wow.

She had the flushing light too but there was another light, a stronger one that gave structure and purpose to all that energy. It scrolled over her skin like swirls of frost or lace, there was something almost like calligraphy about it. It was beautiful and it shone out from her, even through her clothes so that he could see the pattern ran the length and breadth of her body and limbs. It framed her eyes, cheekbones and jaw like intricate tribal tattooing.

They were pulsing highways of power rolling through her body. The predominant colours were purple and silver, but there were sparks and flushes of every other colour in there too.

David grinned and spoke without meaning to.

“It’s beautiful.”

Regina blinked at him in surprise and cut the spell like a string.

“Uhm, thank you.” She drew her hands from his and suddenly didn’t know what to do with them. She was unaccustomed to compliments.

The coffee machine bleeped behind her and Regina turned away from him, grateful for the distraction.

“So, that’s what you saw in Henry?”

“Yes. When Daniel healed me, I felt different, stronger, so I used a similar spell to the one I just used on you to see my magic and realised the change. I looked at Henry before I dropped the spell and…he’s powerful. Very powerful.”

David glanced at the spells scrawled over the windows and the books spread over every available flat surface and mulled it over.

“So you’re trying to take it away?”

“No!” Regina stared at him, shocked. “Of course not. Never.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Taking someone’s magic?” Regina quieted herself when she realised he had no idea what he was talking about. “It’s the cruellest thing imaginable. I would sooner kill Henry than do that to him.” Regina shuddered at the very prospect.

“No, there’s nothing I can do to change this, he is as he is. The best I can do is hide it from everyone else. At least, that’s what I will do if I ever figure out how to make this stupid spell work.” She growled accusingly at the scribbles over the window like it was their fault.

“Oh, okay.” David studied the spells too with the same comprehension a penguin might muster for astrophysics. “Can I help?”

“I don’t think so.” Regina handed him his coffee.

She glared at nothing in particular, as if waiting for something to apologise for this crimp in her day.

“Thank you.” David sipped his coffee and frowned. Cream and three sugars. “You know how I take my coffee?”

“Know your enemy.” Regina shrugged it off, having turned her attention to the taps over the sink, just in case they were in on it with the window.

“Right.” David realised how bizarre this all was.

He had walked into Regina’s house, lair of the Evil Queen, not once but twice in the last twenty four hours alone. He had accepted food and drink from her without protest or even thinking to check for poison and he had even allowed her to put a spell on him. Though that might have had something to do with the way she had asked.

Regina was not the type to ask for things. She took them and then acted like it was your fault for not taking it first. To say she had a lack of people skills was kind of like Rumplestiltskin had brokered a couple of deals in his time. She was changing. A lot.

She seemed…not softer but more open. More approachable. Perhaps that was because he had seen her at her most vulnerable. Gotten the chance to see her with Henry as his mother and not the woman who would tear someone apart for even looking like they might take him away from her.

“You’re worried about Henry.”

It wasn’t a question but Regina answered him anyway. Well, it looked like even her patience for people, or at the very least with him, was improving.

“Just shy of crawling the walls.” Regina murmured absently.

“Well, Henry’s a good kid. I’m sure he’ll be fine. I mean, he’s the son of the Savior, the grandson of Prince Charming and he was raised by you. I don’t think there’s much that can be—oof!” David nearly upended his coffee over himself when Regina’s hand clapped against his chest.

“Shut up.” She spoke over his sputtering. “I’m having a moment of clarity.”

David glared at her. So much for improving social interactions.

“Yes!” Regina turned to him suddenly and threw her coffee cup onto the counter, uncaring that it slopped coffee everywhere, narrowly missing one of her books. “Yes! Oh, gods, you beautiful man!” Regina gripped him by the face and pinched his cheeks, laughing at him.

“Uh, yay?”

“Family! That’s it, that’s the answer.” She shoved him aside, running to the window, summoning the marker to her hand from across the room. She began to scrawl a new equation, symbols and numbers and what looked to be astrological signs along with other things that David couldn’t even hazard a guess at. “I couldn’t do it myself, the distance between Henry and I would make that impossible but with you, a blood relative, I can negate that.”

David didn’t know if Regina was actually talking to him but he listened anyway.

“Not enough on our own. Your blood wouldn’t do it and neither would my magic, but together, we can manage it.” She turned to him and grinned. “Don’t you see? It’s perfect. Henry’s magic imprinted on mine, the harness of his pathways is almost identical in configuration. All over and evenly distributed, one in a _thousand_ sorcerers have that kind of blessing. Because he was raised by me, his magic followed my example but it’s not just that, his colours are almost identical to yours. As his closest living male relative it would make sense that the magic would take from his blood and mimic you.” Regina shoved a clutch of her hair back from her face, not seeming to notice that she smeared black ink on her cheek.

David nodded even though he had only really understood about every third word in there. He frowned.

“How could Henry’s magic imprint on yours when Stroybrooke didn’t have magic until about three weeks ago?”

“Oh, Storybrooke was teeming with magic.” Regina waved that away. “The curse itself was magic. It’s laced into every brick and stone, tree and twig, even the water. Did you not wonder where the food in the stores comes from? We don’t get delivery trucks coming through here.” Regina was too excited to be condescending. She bent to the cupboards and threw them open, rummaging until she found a big enough pan.

“That is…incredibly cool, actually.” David admitted and smirked when she laughed.

“Yes, yes it is.” Regina hefted a thick bottomed steel pot onto the hob and turned on the huge central ring, full blast. Blue flames splashing against the pot’s underside. “The rest of this dirty little world will wither and die as they consume their resources to nothing, but Storybrooke is entirely self-sustaining.”

“Nice.”

“I thought so.” Regina turned to him. “Silver. I need silver. Something silver that belonged to Henry…be right back.”

David was left with nothing but a rush of air for a companion when she ran out of the kitchen and threw herself up the stairs.

If David had thought she was high strung before…

He wondered if he should be worried about what she was up to. He had to take her at her word that she was doing nothing to harm Henry but…that was probably the only thing he could completely trust her on. She would _never_ harm Henry. If she said she needed this thing to protect him from…whatever then he supposed he had to go along with it.

“Got it.”

David flinched when she suddenly spoke directly behind him.

“Got what?”

“Henry’s head-wetting gifts.” Regina opened a velvet box and lifted out a little silver baby rattle. An old fashioned one. She gave it a little shake and smiled softly at the chiming sound that came from within.

“I lost the ones I inherited from my father to the curse, but I didn’t want Henry to go without and this was supposed to be a fresh start.” Regina glanced at him self-consciously and gave an awkward smile. “I wanted to start new traditions.”

David didn’t know what to say. Maybe that her traditions could have started with not being a psychopath? That seemed overly cruel. He was beginning to get the very real sense that Regina was broken rather than bad.

“Pity.” She gave a sad smile and dropped the rattle into the pot. The silver spoon followed after it and she ripped off the rubber part of the teething ring with a grunt of effort before that joined the other two.

“Regina!”

“It’s necessary.” Regina gave him a sharp look and then softened again. “Besides, I’m sure that you, Snow and Emma have lots of things to give him as an inheritance.”

“No, actually, we don’t.” The curse, you, stole them from us. He didn’t say it but it didn’t need saying. He was surprised when she gave a sad smile rather than get defensive.

“I wasn’t talking about trinkets.” She turned back to the hob and peered into the now smoking pot.

David could see a haze of heat belching out of it and resisted the urge to pull her back out of harm’s way. His chivalry gland was acting up again, he realised. He found it a lot easier to ignore it when she pulled a knife from the block on the island counter and looked him right in the eye. He leaned back, not retreating but prepared to defend himself.

“Don’t freak out.”

It was the only warning he got before she turned back to the pot, fisted her hand around the blade and yanked it out of her hand. Blood splattered and hissed as it bled onto the heated metal within the pot and David lunged forward.

“Don’t freak out!” Regina dropped the knife into the sink and held out her hand to ward him off. The other was still held in the steam hissing from the pot, apparently she didn’t know that she should be getting third degree burns right about now.

“You nearly sliced your fingers off!”

“Don’t be such a baby. I’ve had worse.” She scowled at him and his apparent theatrics. She was still bleeding steadily into the pot.

“You have?”

“Hmm, yes.” Regina propped herself up against the counter with her hip, her hand still bleeding into the silver beginning to liquefy within. She continued in a conversational tone. “The worst was actually the clubbing. If you’re ever given the choice, take sharp force over blunt force any day. A slice or a stab is a lot less painful than a bone being crushed.”

David paled and not just because he couldn’t drag his attention away from the blood dripping from her hand. She had to have given nearly a pint by now. Putting a measurement on it sickened him to his stomach.

“Are you going to be sick?” Regina finally lifted her hand from over the pot, turning it palm up.

David watched the blood well, watched the way she cupped her hand to prevent it from dripping all over the floor. She was practiced at this. That just made him feel worse.

“You know,” he swallowed hard, “the jury’s still out.”

“I wouldn’t have thought blood would sicken you, Charming. You saw more than enough of it on the battlefield.”

“Exactly.” David couldn’t take it anymore. He snatched up some kitchen towel from beside the sink and clapped it over her hand. “I’ve seen enough blood to last me ten lifetimes.”

Regina looked up at him and frowned. Her face softened after a minute.

“I forget you were raised a shepherd.” She offered him an apologetic smile. “I should have thought. I apologise…but there’s no harm done.”

Regina pulled his hand and the towels from over hers and lifted her hand to show her skin sealed and blood free. There was an angry pink line from where she had taken the cut, but that was the only evidence of damage on her.

David looked down at the towels and blinked. Not a drop of blood marred them.

“I didn’t realise you could heal.”

“Healing can be just as harmful as the opposite.” Regina shrugged a shoulder. “Besides, I had plenty of practice.” She smiled at him, trying to make light of it but David wasn’t so easily dissuaded.

“Practice on yourself?”

“Myself and my Blackguard.” Regina tilted her head.

“Really?”

“They were difficult to train. Good minions are so hard to come by.” She waved it away and studied him a moment.

David realised what she was winding up to and held out his hand.

“Go on. Make it quick.”

Regina smiled at him.

“So willing to fall on a sword.” She mocked him gently and reached out slowly towards his chest.

She watched him stiffen, consider batting her hand away and then relaxed, letting her continue. She could feel his heart hammering under his shirt when her palm pressed to his chest. He was terrified of what she might do. She drew her hand back, as if pulling something from him and David looked down when he felt a corresponding tug.

His eyes went wide when he saw light stretching from him to her fingers like pulled taffy. It was smoky and somehow gelatinous at the same time. She drew a handful from him and he could honestly say that he didn’t miss it. It wobbled and wafted around her hand and she cupped it gently between her palms.

She smiled and laughed.

“What is it?”

“Your magic.” Regina’s smile didn’t completely vanish from her lips. “It is truly disgusting how much you love that woman.”

“What? The same way you love Daniel?”

Regina’s concentration faltered a moment and the magic flickered between her palms. She hurriedly turned back to it and spoke in a deceptively nonchalant tone.

“Love has never been effortless for me. It comes as naturally to you as breathing…I’ve always had to fight and claw for mine.” Regina carefully reached right into the pot with the magic, like she was cradling a baby bird, and let it sink into the now bubbling silver.

She watched the brew for a moment and hummed in the back of her throat, unable or unwilling to notice the way David was looking at her with such pity.

No, she realised after a moment, not pity but sorrow. He was sorry for her and that wasn’t the same as pity.

“What do you need from Henry?”

Regina settled down onto her heels and thought for a moment. Blood would be best but she couldn’t bear to take that from him, not unless she had to. She twisted her mouth as she thought.

“Teeth.” She decided after a moment.

David’s eyes flew wide and she scowled at him.

“Baby teeth.” She clarified. “I still have his.”

“Really?” David’s nose wrinkled and Regina arched a brow at him.

“Would you have thrown away a piece of Emma?”

David opened his mouth and then shook his head sheepishly. No. It was weird and creepy to keep pieces of your child’s head, but he’d have done exactly as Regina had.

Maybe that’s what had him warming to her. He was beginning to realise that she had raised Henry very much in the same way that he would have had the boy been his son.

Sure, he wouldn’t have lied to him and let him think himself crazy, but all the important basics had been covered. Looking both ways before crossing the street, stranger danger, tell the truth, do as your told (okay, that one hadn’t exactly stuck but David thought that was entirely Henry’s fault) and do right by others.

It did not bypass him that Henry had a hell of a moral compass and David was equal parts mystified and pleased to know that it had been Regina that had instilled it in his grandson.

“I raised him how I wanted to be raised.” Regina seemed to know where his mind had gone. “I tried to show him I loved him as well as telling him…I evidently wasn’t very good at it, but that was what I wanted to do.”

Regina shrugged a shoulder and moved away before David could do something stupid like hug her.

They were allies, tentatively so, perhaps one day they might be acquaintances or maybe even friends, but that wasn’t today.

Still, he wanted to comfort her.

“Henry’s a good kid, Regina.”

Regina half turned to him in the doorway but didn’t look him in the eye.

“I know it was you that did that.”

Regina chuckled, it was wry and self-deprecating.

“Don’t touch anything.”

David was left alone to warily listen to the bubbling spell on the stove. Risking a glance inside, David grimaced when he saw the roiling gloop that looked nothing like the ingredients that had gone into the pot. It was mercurial and glowing, pulsing with a seeming life of its own.

David prudently took himself to the other side of the island worktop and scowled at the pot. Magic gave him the heebies. Every damn time.

“Coward.” Regina lightly mocked him when she came back into the room holding, of all things, a mint tin.

“My experiences with hoodoo up until now haven’t exactly sold me on it.”

Regina laughed at him again but there was no malice to it. She opened the tin and rattled the little teeth into the pot. She was on her tiptoes, peering into the pot. She rocked back on her heels and frowned as she thought on something.

“Blood, bone and bright…” She murmured to herself and leaned over to look into the pot. She lowered herself to the flats of her feet and backed up a couple of steps. “Ah.”

“What?” David didn’t like how she was still backing cautiously away from the pot.

Purple smoke was billowing from it now.

“I may have made a _slight_ miscalculation with the ingredients.” Regina measured the distance of the white embers sparking from within the pot and was disheartened to notice they were already scorching the ceiling.

Damn it, she was stronger now. She hadn’t needed nearly that much blood.

“Uh…” Regina turned to David and pasted what she hoped to be a serene smile on her face. “Duck.”

“What?”

“Duck!” Regina leapt up, vaulting onto the island worktop and slithering over the smooth surface to crash into David, knocking him to the floor.

She threw herself over him, wrapping her arms around his head and ducking her own into his neck.

_WHOOMPH!_

Magic lashed out from the pot, a multi-coloured mushroom cloud of it, belching from within the pot. A bright white flash flared, dazzling them even behind Regina’s arms and their squeezed tight eyelids. Heat and –oddly- the scent of coconut filled the kitchen.

David was lying stunned on the floor, Regina half on top of him, his ears ringing and a shaking woman in his arms.

“Regina,” his voice sounded like it was coming from very far away and from underwater, “are you okay?”

Regina pried her arms from around his head and braced her hands on his chest. Her shoulders shaking. She was laughing.

David scowled at her and flinched convulsively when another bright flash seared his retinas.

“Henry?” Regina sat up, apparently uncaring that she was straddling David. “Hello, dear.”

“Hi, mom, smile.” Henry lifted something in his hands and Regina dutifully shook her hair out and put on a broad Hollywood starlet grin.

Henry laughed and a clicking shutter sound filtered through the ringing in David’s ears.

Regina pushed to her feet, causing David to grunt when she used her hands on his stomach to lever herself up.

“Did you just take a photo?” David sat up carefully and levelled the question at his grandson.

Henry, holding his cellphone in his hand, looked at David owlishly and smiled innocently.

“Yeah.”

“Why?” David groaned and got his feet under him. He braced his hands on his knees when dizziness assailed him.

“Way I figure it,” Henry confided, “I never know when I might need some leverage.” Henry swiped his finger over the screen of the phone and showed the locked screen to David.

Knowing Henry, the swipe code was diabolical.

“Leverage? I’m your grandfather. What could you need leverage against me for?”

“You never know.” Henry shrugged.

“Henry, that’s not very nice.” David frowned, mostly because he _really_ didn’t want Snow to see a picture of him sandwiched between the Evil Queen and the floor of her kitchen.

“Meh, I’m a product of my upbringing.” Henry shrugged it off and pocketed the cell phone. “Thanks for the phone, mom.”

“You’re welcome, honey.” Regina chuckled, braced her hands on the counter by the hob and boosted herself up to sit on it, leaning over the pot.

She had turned off the gas since the small explosion had snuffed the flame and waved away the still wafting steam to try and see what she had been left with.

“You’re both despicable.” David grumbled and glared at Henry, though not entirely seriously. “And if Emma’s super power is telling when people are lying, yours is turning up exactly where you shouldn’t.”

David tousled Henry’s hair and cautiously approached Regina and her potion.

“So, what have you been up to?” Henry followed his grandfather.

“Cooking.” Regina turned and leaned over to open a drawer. She rummaged a moment and came up with a pair of tongs. Leaning into the pot, she fished around for a moment and then grinned when the tongs clipped around something.

“Victory.” She muttered triumphantly.

Lifting the steaming tongs from the pot, Regina tilted her head and studied what she had made.

“Huh.”

“What’s that?” David and Henry spoke together and Regina focussed back on them.

“It’s a torque.” Regina tapped it cautiously with her fingers and dropped the almost circlet of metal into her hands when she found it incongruously warm but not red hot as it should be.

Then again, it should be a horrid mess of blood, bone and metal, not a gleaming piece of jewellery of stunning artistry. She studied it intently. It really was very well made.

The silver of Henry’s baby things had been reformed into a necklace of sorts. A ring of metal with a break in it. It was formed of strands of silver twisted around one another, the ends of the strands were rounded off with caps shaped like clenched fists made of the ivory of Henry’s past teeth. The rings of metal that joined the fists to the rigid rope of the silver were studded with the black garnet with red and purple veins of Regina’s blood and the shimmering blue opals of David’s magic made real.

“It’s kind of pretty.” Henry went up on his tiptoes, his hands resting on his mother’s knees to study the necklace.

“Fit for a king.” Regina smirked and gently beckoned Henry away to let her down off the counter. She hopped down and eyed her son a long moment.

He lifted his head from studying the necklace in her hands and smiled at her.

“What’s a torque?” David prodded when it looked like he wasn’t going to get an answer.

“It’s a sign of royalty.” Regina lifted her head to answer him. “Warrior kings of old would wear them to show their status.”

“So it’s a crown?” Henry looked at it. It didn’t look big enough to fit on the head of anyone older than a toddler.

“Of sorts. It is worn about the neck.” Regina glanced at David and chose her next words carefully. “I made it with magic.”

Henry went still, tensing a moment and then slowly looked up at her.

“Why?”

“There was no other way to do it.” Regina sank down on her heels so he could better meet her gaze. “Are you angry with me?”

“No.”

Regina smiled when he answered without hesitation.

“But…I would like to know what it’s for.”

“It’s to protect someone.”

Henry smiled, the last of the tension leaving him.

“That’s good. Who are we protecting?”

Regina smiled, he was so eager to be a knight…she wondered again how he was going to take this shift in his future.

He could still be a knight, but he would have bore the pennant of a combat mage back in the Enchanted Forest, alongside the likes of Merlin, Belgareth and Gandalf. All of them elderly. Combat mages were a dying breed if that was what Henry wanted to be.

Though, considering his constant need to do the right thing, a paladin was far more likely. She detested the thought of any son of hers becoming a barrier between people and their own problems, but she knew the idea would appeal to him.

“You.” Regina forced herself to answer and watched him frown in confusions. She smiled in a lopsided way. “We should probably sit down and talk about this. It’s a little complicated.”

“I’m magic, aren’t I?”

Regina blinked at him and then laughed. Of course he would already know. She hadn’t raised a fool.

“Yes, yes you are.” Regina looked down at the torque still in her hands and turned it over and over. “Not just magical but…very powerful.”

“Powerful like you?”

Regina smiled at him and reached up to cup his face.

“Powerful doesn’t mean bad, sweetheart. Think of all the good witches and wizards you know of. Remember what I told you at your castle?”

“If I have to be afraid of something, be afraid of the caster. Magic isn’t good or bad.” Henry gave a small smile. “You’ll never hurt me.”

Regina returned his smile with one of her own and moved onto the next milestone.

“You know how you can hear magic?” He nodded and she went on. “Well, with the right spells, you can see it as well and, Henry, you stand out. Magic lights you up like a Christmas tree and, if I can see it then other people can too.”

“I glow?” Henry looked down at his hands as if to check for himself.

“Very much so.”

“Cool.” Henry grinned at her and she made her face serious even though she was glad he was taking this a lot better than she had expected.

“Yes, it is, but it’s also very rare and it makes you very valuable. There are people that would take advantage of you if they can.”

“And the torque will stop them?”

“It will stop them from seeing your magic until I can teach you to defend yourself.”

“You’re going to teach me to fight with magic?!” Henry grinned.

This was awesome. He’d been awake most of the night thinking about it –anything to keep the nightmares at bay- he’d worried that the power would corrupt him, make him bad, let the darkness in him take over, but then he’d remembered his mom remaking his castle.

The way she had smiled as she had done it. He’d thought about all the good stuff the faeries had done with their magic and –most of all- about his mom telling him that magic was neither good or bad and he figured that meant it was up to him to decide what to do with it.

“No!” Regina gentled her tone when he looked stricken. “Henry, the first thing you’re going to learn is how to run away.” She resigned herself to the real world though.

“We can work up to fighting spells.”

“Now wait a minute…” David started and Regina spoke over him.

“You’re teaching him to fence, this is no different.”

“Regina, you built a castle with your _mind_ yesterday, not to mention all the…other stuff you’ve done. It’s a little different from wooden practice swords.”

“I agree, I’ll be teaching him properly.” Regina straightened and looked David in the eye. “Those practice swords aren’t even weighted.”

“Weighted?” Henry frowned up at David. “What does that mean?”

“Wood is a lot lighter than steel,” Regina pushed aside Henry’s school shirt collar and looped the torque around his neck, “in the Enchanted Forest, practice blades are weighted with a core of lead to make sure that the student is accustomed to swinging the full weight of a real sword and help them build up their strength and stamina.”

Henry tucked in his chin to try and look at the torque but made no move to take it off.

“Keep this on at all times, okay?” Regina lifted Henry’s chin so he looked at her. “Promise me.”

“I’ll wear it all the time if you promise me that your magic or using it to teach me isn’t hurting you.”

Regina smiled at him.

“I promise that using my magic to teach you won’t hurt me. In fact, it will probably make me better at it.”

“You won’t break your promise?”

“Even if you break yours.” Regina tapped her finger against the torque on his neck and smirked at the chime of magic between them. “I reserve the right to be mad as hell and ground you until you’re thirty, but I’m done with hurting myself.”

Regina was nearly bowled over when Henry lunged and caught her around the neck in a fierce hug. Regina recovered gamely and hugged him back, glancing over at David who smirked and then spoke to lighten the mood.

“How’d you know so much about the proper teaching of fencing?” David folded his arms over his chest.

She might be able to fling fireballs without breaking a sweat, but if there was one thing he knew, it was swords. She was exactly right about the weighted blades but David had been working up to that. He wanted Henry to know at least how to handle a sword with some decent basic control, locking the motion into muscle memory, before moving onto the strength training.

“Who do you think trained my Blackguard?” Regina told him archly.

David scoffed and Regina smirked at him.

“What’s a blaggard?” Henry looked between the adults.

“My elite personal guard.” Regina murmured, her eyes narrowed at Charming. “Don’t believe me?”

“Uh, that the Spetsnaz of the Enchanted Forest were trained by a woman in four inch heels?” David shook his head, smirking. “No.”

“Name the time and place, Charming. I’ll school you too.” Regina smirked in return and Henry looked between them.

“Never happen.” David laughed.

“Scared of being beaten by a girl?”

“What, are we four?” David shook his head. “I’m not going to get goaded into hurting you.”

“I think you’re scared.” Henry turned to David. No way was he missing out on seeing his mom and granddad in action.

“I am _not_ scared.” David enunciated. “I just happen to know when your mom’s getting too big for her stilettoes.”

“Oh yes, he’s scared.” Regina chuckled and rested a hand on Henry’s shoulder.

“I’m not scared!” David threw up his hands.

“Poow widdle pwince.” Regina mocked, clasping her hands together and making Henry guffaw. “Is oo afwaid of the big bad witch?”

“You’re half my size.” David told her flatly.

“But I make up for it in moxy.” Regina sniffed at him.

“That still won’t give you the range and strength you need to take me on, majesty. Sitting on a throne for thirty years will do that to a body.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

“What?!” David looked understandably horrified at the female logic that was being levelled at him. “How did we get to fat?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one slinging accusations around!” Regina waved her hand violently but both David and Henry could tell from the smirk at her mouth that she wasn’t entirely serious. “That’s it, my honour has been besmirched, I challenge you to a duel.”

“Regina…” David tried for reason once more and had his words stopped by the oven mitt Regina picked up from the counter slapping over his mouth.

“Besmirched, I say!” Regina barely kept the laughter from her voice at his expression. She had to admit that the glove had been a nice touch.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” Henry jumped up and down, giggling.

David, looking between the two of them, heaved a sigh when he realised there was no getting out of it. He cast a warning glare at Regina.

“This stops as soon as it has to.”

“I’ll go easy on you.” Regina smirked at him.

David sighed and shook his head.

“Alright.” He grumbled. “I take it you have suitable practice blades?”

“Of course.” Regina smirked and held out her hands, twin plumes of purple smoke left her holding David’s sword, summoned from his apartment, and another unfamiliar blade in her other hand.

“I’m not fighting you with a real blade!”

“Oh, calm down, they now have the cutting power of a butter knife. I’ve shielded both blades.” Regina rolled her eyes and held out his sword to him.

David scowled.

“Fine.” His tone made it clear that this was all under protest. “Back yard?”

“Now, Charming, if the dashing prince is going to fight the Evil Queen, surely there should be an audience.” Regina lifted a hand and snapped her fingers.

Purple smoke engulfed all three of them.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 – Greatest Show on Earth**

 

_**Granny’s...** _

 

Ruby lifted her head, her keen nose twitching when the familiar bloom of magic reached her heightened senses. She cast around for the source and didn’t have to wonder long before the door flew open and Henry bounded breathlessly into the diner.

The place was filling up rapidly for the dinner rush and every head twisted to look at him. He stood there for a second, counting apparently, and then spoke on a rush.

“David’s gonna fight my mom.”

Silence met that announcement and Henry frowned, he spoke again, louder.

“The Evil Queen challenged Prince Charming to a duel!”

People threw themselves from their seats and they poured towards the door, leaving Granny protesting about unpaid bills in their wake.

Henry danced backwards and hurled himself down the steps and onto the street. He ran out onto the street, which his mom had cordoned off by levitating parked cars across the road in two walls in order to give them a decent battlefield. Henry ran over to them, stopping about halfway between them.

They stood ten paces apart and he looked between both adults, grinning from ear to ear. He frowned.

“You guys are really going to fight like this?” He could hear the people pouring out of the diner and others coming out of the other stores to see what all the commotion was about.

“You were the one calling me a coward.” David looked down at Henry with a frown. Had he changed his mind?

“No, Henry is right,” Regina’s voice projected, not quite the cruel and cold voice of the Evil Queen, but close enough to the novice ear. “If it is to be a duel, then it shall be a duel as we really are!”

Regina threw her hand up into the air and purple smoke engulfed both her and David.

David blinked down and found himself clad in the much familiar garb of the Enchanted Forest. Leather boots and breeches, a white open necked shirt and a leather coat over that. Looking over at Regina, Charming gulped.

She stood in full on Evil Regal garb. She hadn’t grown her hair out, but it was still swept up into an elaborate style, studded with black pearls and amethysts. Her makeup was dark and striking, her lips painted so dark a red it was nearly black. She wore a corseted full skirted coat with a high collar, styled to trail behind her to show off leather pants tight enough that she could only have been magicked into them. Her only concession to duelling attire was that the heels of her sharp toed boots were a paltry three inches rather than four or five.

“Really?” David tilted his head at her.

“Might as well give them what they want.” Regina smirked and shrugged a shoulder.

“This is stupid. One of us is going to get hurt.”

“Yes. One of us is.” Regina stood demurely (well, she tried but that neckline was putting up a good fight), her rapier blade clasped between both hands.

“Fine. You were warned.” David heaved a sigh and resigned himself to suffering through this.

“Okay, rules,” Henry looked between them, projecting his voice to be heard, “no magic, no backstabbing and –uh- no biting.”

Regina smirked at the last and arched a brow at Charming, giving him the chance to voice objections. It was her playful smirk that got to him. She was having fun, so was Henry. Charming rolled his eyes and gave in to it.

“Is it a points system or...to the death?” David put on a suitable show of melodrama.

“Uh, three hits and uh…” Henry shrugged. “I dunno.”

“You guys gunna fight or what?!”

Henry cringed a little at Grumpy’s voice calling over the street.

“ _Silence_.” Regina hissed at him and Grumpy actually staggered back a step.

She turned back to Charming and Henry and smiled sweetly, suddenly back to being Henry’s mom.

“Three hits and knocked to the ground.” Regina flicked her fingers and each of their blades suddenly shone a lurid colour. A brilliant blue for Regina and, she savoured Charming’s glower, when he found his blade shining neon pink.

“Ha-ha.” He drawled at her.

“Do you guys get twenty paces or what?” Henry looked at David.

“That’s pistols, dear.” Regina switched her attention to David. “Unless you’d prefer a shootout?”

“No.” David spoke quickly. Swords were bad enough. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Okay.” Henry tore off his school tie and held it up between them. David drew his blade and rolled his shoulders, readying himself.

Regina cocked her weight onto one hip and smirked at him.

David began to get the feeling he was in over his head.

“Fight!” Henry yelled and whipped his tie down in lieu of a flag.

He dashed backwards to the sidewalk to stand between Granny and Ruby and Regina waited only until he had turned to see before she began.

David yelped when her blade, blunted by magic, streaked over his cheekbone.

He had barely seen her coming. She had crossed the distance between them, drawn her blade and smeared it and its magic blue goop across his face in one fluid motion.

David staggered back and cursed when she whipped out with her scabbard and slapped him over the thigh with it.

“Pay attention, Charming.” The queen stalked him. “Snow isn’t here to save you now.”

David, still smarting from the slap to his thigh –that was going to leave a mark- swiped at his cheek with the back of his hand.

Alright, she’d made her point. He’d underestimated her and she’d proven, had this been a real fight, she’d have taken his head in one move.

“Alright, Your Regal Evilness, let’s dance.” David raised his sword and went on the attack.

Their swords clashed with a ringing sound that gave the impression that the swords were quite deadly and David heard a sharp intake of breath from the crowd when he swung in a beheading strike.

Regina yawned –actually yawned- when she ducked it.

David huffed an incredulous chuckle and stepped up the pace.

Realising he naturally overpowered her in upper body strength, David dropped his second hand from the hilt of his sword. Trading in the great sweeping arcs that would have winded her and ended the duel in one strike in favour of the much quicker parries and thrusts that were more likely to get him under her guard.

She was good, but he was better. At this at least.

David’s sudden increase in speed sent Regina dancing back, surprisingly agile in those shoes of hers. She kept up with him, parrying back and forth, making him work for it. He only got her when her dress came into play.

She leapt back from one of his thrusting jabs and David’s lunge brought his foot down on her trailing skirt quite by accident. Regina was yanked to a halt suddenly, arms flying wide to retain her balance and leaving her open to the jab of David’s sword into her middle. David’s eyes flew wide and the crowd jeered when the sword bent like it was made of rubber.

Regina’s response was to backhand him across the jaw.

“Bad form!” Henry yelled from the crowd, working them into a frenzy.

“What?” Regina pointed her dress. “This is silk!”

“Glad to see you’re getting the hint. Evil Queens, or their wardrobes, are not suited to the battlefield.” David rubbed at his jaw. “You’ve got a mean left though.”

“And your jaw’s like an anvil.” Regina shook her hand as if to flick the hurt from it. “Must be the wood between your ears. Makes your skull denser.”

David laughed but –this time- when she lunged with that surprise of speed of hers, he was ready. His sword came up at the last minute and he parried her blade aside, ducking and jamming his shoulder into her middle and standing again, flipping her over his head.

Regina, not to be outdone, twisted like a cat and tangled her skirt about his head. The loops attaching it to the bodice of her coat snapped as they were designed to and she dropped to the ground on her toes.

Then she kicked him in the ass.

The crowd laughed and Henry spilled the sauce from his hotdog down his shirt.

Granny, in the true form of a good business woman, had taken to selling her wares on the sidewalk. Hotdogs and burgers and nachos. She had been miffed at Henry for dragging all her customers away, but the duel had brought three times the number of people that had packed the diner and they were all up for some dinner to go with their show.

David laughed as he staggered, off balance, and righted himself. He dragged the material from his head hurriedly freed his sword arm, deflecting another of Regina’s sweeping cutting motions.

Lifting the cape of her skirt, David snapped it out, whirling it like a bullfighter. The crimson lining of the skirt automatically drew Regina’s eye so she didn’t react fast enough when David lunged out from under the cover of the cape and laid a wicked pink streak over the leather covering her thigh.

Regina made a sound of disgust at being played and –probably- the clash of the pink against the leather.

“Two-one!” Henry shouted helpfully and Regina scowled over at him good naturedly.

“Traitor.” She called softly and he laughed at her.

In that moment of distraction, Charming danced forward and slapped her lightly in the face with the flat of his blade.

The crowd _oohed_ in a low rush when the Queen jerked back and squeezed her eyes shut when the magic paint coating the blade splattered over her face.

“Three-one!” Somebody catcalled and Regina’s lips pressed together in anger.

Not entirely an act and not entirely at Charming. She’d been distracted by Henry and it had been idiotic and now she was two points behind and all Charming had to do was knock her over, which he was more than strong enough to do, and he would win.

And that just would not do.

“Alright, kid gloves are off.” Regina wiped at the paint on her face with exaggerated care and whirled her sword point up.

Gripping it in both hands, Regina jerked at the hilt with a click from the sword. When she pulled her hands apart, she had a blade in each hand.

“No magic!” Somebody called out and Regina just smirked.

“Not magic.” Regina grinned.

She had gone from a double edged blade to two slimmer and single edged blades. The ornate cage around the hilt cracked in half and served as a wicked pair of knuckle dusters. Nothing magic about it. Just some good old fashioned craftiness.

Charming dropped into a defensive crouch, his eyes darting between both blades and then back up to meet her gaze. Her smirk widened into a smile.

She pounced.

Charming actually yelped when she ran and leaped at him. He staggered back lifting his sword to parry. He caught one of the blades but not the other and hissed when she dragged the second down the front of his body from sternum to –well- stem.

David staggered away, trying not to just sink to the ground.

A groan of sympathy went up from the men in the audience.

He parried desperately, on the defensive. She hadn’t really hurt him. She could have hit him harder, but it was a little retaliation for slapping her in the face. He recovered gamely enough, knowing she had let him, just so she had the satisfaction of beating him at full strength. When he finally straightened to his full height, he decided to end it.

Lunging for her, David prepared himself to take the last strike full to the chest and use his larger size to bowl her to the ground. He’d still have had three strikes, but he’d be the one to knock her over.

Seeing what he was doing, Regina quite deliberately turned her back on him.

David yelped and screeched to a halt, jinking clumsily to the side, leaving himself wide open for Regina to drop to one knee and spin, dragging both blades over his stomach in a move that would have spilled his innards on the street had it been a real fight.

David staggered and tumbled in a roll, coming effortlessly back to his feet and making it clear she hadn’t knocked him over. He spun back on her, all he could do was try and take her down before she landed another strike. He hammered at her, moving back to the two handed style and throwing his entire weight behind each strike. It was a gamble, he’d tire quickly this way, but she just didn’t have the strength to match his.

As proved by one and then the other of her blades sent skittering over the street when he managed to smack them from her hold.

Regina stood, unarmed, smeared in pink paint, panting with difficulty in her corset and then she laughed at him.

“Do you yield?” David levelled his blade at her neck and she scoffed.

“To you?” She threw back her head and laughed in full on Evil Queen style. “Never!”

She took a step back from him, placed one hand behind her back and held up the other, her index and her middle finger held together in a ridiculous parody of a weapon.

“You still have to knock me down.”

“You’ve got to be joking.” David stared at her. “This is a broadsword! Even dulled with magic, it still hurts. I’ll break your fingers if you don’t use magic.”

“Try me.”

“No.” David frowned at her.

“Come on, David.” Regina spoke low enough for only him to hear. “You won’t hurt me, I promised Henry. Put on a good show for the masses.”

So she wanted to go down fighting, David sighed, fair enough.

He swept forward with a one handed swing, intending to cough the air out of her lungs and bowl her over and gaped when his sword suddenly flew out of his hand.

She had caught the flat on the edge of her finger, deflecting the lazy strike away, and forcing the blade to twist. David’s hand bent the wrong way and he let go on reflex. His sword clattered against the street and he turned just in time for a roundhouse to the face.

David grunted and staggered. Damn, if her left was good, her right was like a sledgehammer.

David shook his head hard and brought up his fists.

He needn’t have bothered, Regina lashed out with one foot, catching him in the back of the knee and forcing him down onto it. Her hand clapped over his face and, with a contemptuous push, she toppled him to the ground. David sprawled and landed by his sword.

Unable to let good lose the day to evil, David whipped it up and threw it at her.

Regina’s eyes widened, surprised at his breaking the rules, but it wasn’t the first time he had flung a sword at her. Regina was thrown back in a hop by the impact of the sword and groaned.

David sat up, concerned that the enchantment had worn off with his losing the duel and he had actually succeeded in turning her into a well-dressed kebab.

He needn’t have worried. Regina, in true theatrical fashion, had caught the blade between her arm and her body and made a good show of staggering into her death throes.

“I’ve been skewered!” She wailed. “So many regrets, so many desserts I could have eaten, so many schemes that never came to be!”

Regina staggered into the audience and collapsed onto Grumpy, hanging from his shoulders and being sure to smear him with pink.

“The illiteracy ray, sentient cabbage, stealing everyone’s left shoe!” Regina inflicted herself upon more members of the audience, enjoying herself immensely and taking an inordinate amount of time to die. She clutched at Ruby’s shoulders. “Did you know I always wanted to play fetch with you?”

Ruby blinked at her, thrown, and then burst out laughing out of delayed reflex.

“Mother Inferior,” Regina moved onto the Blue Fairy, “I never got the chance to stick you on top of a tree.”

Blue looked infuriated but the crowd chuckled and Regina flashed her a wicked smirk before going back to dying.

“Pongo!” Regina dropped to her knees in front of the dog on the other end of the lead from Archie.

The Dalmatian barked, wagged his tail and slobbered over her face with wet doggy kisses.

“There’s not enough of you for a coat (gods, Pongo, stop that, I’m supposed to bleed to death not drown) but I was going to try for hat and gloves…maybe boots.” Regina wiped the slobber from her cheeks and neck, smearing more pink all over herself and finally latched onto Henry who was giggling madly at the show. “And Henry, son of the Saviour, you bless me with my immortal last line.”

Regina drew herself to her full height and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, swooning like a starlet.

“I’d have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for that meddling kid!” With that, Regina went rigid and toppled backwards onto the street that made everyone wince and –despite themselves- hope she had used magic to cushion the fall.

A hope that was confirmed when a pristine white lily appeared in Regina’s hands clasped over her chest in true cartoon death style.

There was a stunned silence at this bizarre though entirely enjoyable performance and then Henry whooped.

“Yay, mom!” He clapped his hands shouted. “David, you cheater!”

Ruby joined in the clapping and then put her fingers to her lips and let loose a piercing whistle.

Archie seconded, Pongo started barking and soon everyone was clapping.

There were a few sour faces and a lot of confused ones but –for the most part, they enjoyed the show for what it was.

Regina cracked open an eye when David’s shadow fell over her and found him laughing down at her.

“Nice acting.”

“Who’s acting?” Regina closed her eyes. “I died a horrible death.”

“Come on,” David leaned down to help her up and threatened when she didn’t move, “I’ll be forced to try the kiss of life if you don’t move.”

Regina bolted upright in a suitable show of disgust but smirked at him when he hauled her upright. He kept forgetting how light she was and they both yelped when she crashed into him.

“I’m beginning to think you don’t know your own strength, Charming.” Regina stepped back from him and then reached up and smeared at the paint on his face. “I do hope this comes off.”

“What?” David glared at her. “It’s permanent?”

“Oh everything comes off.” Regina waved away. “Eventually.”

“Mom, that was amazing!” Henry bounced over and tackled her about the waist beaming up at her. “You were so funny.”

“Sshh, it’s supposed to be a secret.” Regina held a finger to her lips and smiled at him.

“Like Charming being a cheater.” Regina looked over at her attacker and narrowed her eyes.

“Hey,” Charming held up his hands, “good wins, am I right?”

“Despicable.” Henry looked at him with narrowed eyes and shook his head in condemnation. He couldn’t keep it up though and broke into laughter after a second.

“Alright, who’s hungry?” David picked up his sword from where Regina had left it on the street. “Granny’s for dinner?”

“Yes!” Henry bounced on his toes and then released Regina to dash off to the diner and get them a good seat.

Regina smiled and watched him go. She turned away only once he had disappeared inside and sighed at the cars blocking the street. She lifted her hands, focussed for a moment, and lifted them into the air. All of them. Five cars and two pick-ups and she levitated them a good ten feet into the air.

Some of the stragglers from the breaking up crowd squeaked in alarm but Regina ignored them. She knew she wasn’t about to squish them under the cars like a bug (well, maybe Blue if she was still hanging around) so it didn’t really matter if they hadn’t quite cottoned on yet.

Regina flourished the vehicles through the air and, lowering her hands again, set them back down onto the street in the original positions she had taken them from. Nodding to herself, she turned and headed for home.

“Regina?”

She turned when Charming called out to her.

“Where are you going?”

Regina frowned at him and jerked her thumb along the road.

“Home?”

“You’re not coming to dinner?”

“I’m invited?”

“Yeah.” Charming laughed and then sobered when he saw her expression. He stepped closer to her and looked down at her thoughtfully. “Regina, I’d be a heel if I was only nice to you when no one else could see.”

“So this is for everyone else’s benefit?” She folded her arms over her chest.

“No, it’s not.” Charming glared at her. He huffed out a sigh when he realised what she was doing. “Stop pushing people away. You said that you had wanted this curse to be a fresh start and –well- that obviously fell through for you.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” Regina drawled at him. He wasn’t living up to his name.

It was beyond her what Snow saw in the man sometimes. Yes, he filled out leathers rather pleasingly, but the space for rent between his ears was a let-down.

“I mean maybe breaking the curse can be that fresh start. You’re changing, it’s good. I didn’t even know you had a sense of humour until today. A week ago you never would have acted like this and a week ago people certainly wouldn’t have cheered you on.”

“Cheered on my death throes?”

“Cheered on you being the mother to Henry that everyone hoped you were.” David corrected her. “People didn’t just think he was crazy for The Storybook stuff, they thought he was nuts for loving someone so cold and distant as you.”

David didn’t varnish it though he didn’t enjoy the way she flinched and looked down at her toes.

“They can see, or they caught a glimpse, of who you really are.”

“Who I really am is the villain. That’s my part to play.”

“Fine, then play that part when it suits you.” David shrugged. “Maybe you can be Regina behind the scenes though.”

Regina smiled, bemused but smiling anyway without any real notion as to why. That had been complete nonsense he had just spouted.

“So, fresh starts.” David thrust his hand out at her. “Hi, my name is Charming, my friends call me David. Wanna hang out?”

Regina blinked at him for a long moment and then cautiously –as if expecting it to be a trick- accepted his handshake.

“Hello…David, I’m the Evil Queen. My,” she hesitated to use the word, “friends call me Regina. I’ve never ‘hung out’ before, but I suppose I’ll try anything once.”

“There.” David grinned at her. “Was that so hard?”

“You have no idea.” Regina blew out a breath and then scowled.

She reached up and pulled at the clasps on her jacket, unhooking them and releasing the tight cinch of the corseted clothes. She shrugged it off so she stood in her leather trousers and a black tank top.

“Yeah, I do.” David looked at her suddenly serious. “I’m willing to try and forgive if you are.”

Regina’s head snapped up to look at him, smeared in blue paint, bruised from where he had taken her punch to the face in good graces and saw the truth in his eyes. No artifice, no manipulation, this wasn’t easy for him, there was a lot of bad blood and even more history between them, but he was willing to try. For…for her friendship.

That puzzled Regina most of all and all she could muster as a reply was a nod.

He smiled at her and held out his hand, letting her precede him to the diner.

She cautiously approached the steps and warily pushed her way inside, bracing herself against the silence that greeted her. Everyone stared and she tensed, she felt her walls drawing up, felt the mask creeping into place and then Charming’s hand came down on her shoulder and he cut it off. Just like that.

“Well, it would seem the rumours of her majesty’s death were greatly exaggerated.” David spoke with a theatrical sigh. “Foiled again.”

The tension broke and Ruby appeared in front of them. She took her time looking over both of them, eyeing the swords in their hands. She planted her hands on her hips and put on her best Granny face.

“You’re not gunna start leaping on the furniture and getting paint everywhere are you?”

“I think David has taken all the beating he can stand.” Regina smirked.

“I won!” He protested.

“ _I_ won.” Regina corrected him. “You cheated.”

Ruby looked a little thrown by the banter between the two but warily joined in anyway.

“She did kind of kick your ass.”

“Kind of?” Regina snorted.

“Alright, I’m with her royalness here, you got trounced, Charming.” Ruby jerked her thumb at Regina.

“WELL,” David threw back his head and looked affronted, “I’ll remember that the next time I’m expected to save the day.” He looked down his nose at both women.

“Teaming up on me is not fair so I –and the tattered remains of my manhood- are going over there where I shall anxiously await certain werewolves _fetching_ my dinner.” With that, he swaggered off to the back of the diner where he could see Henry.

“Do you think Snow knows he bats for the other side?” Regina folded her coat over her arm and asked in a conversational tone.

“HAH!” Ruby clapped her hand over her mouth and then looked sideways at Regina. “That’s not funny.”

“It is, because it is clearly not true…but it would be fun to perhaps…give Snow some doubts upon her return?” She glanced appraisingly at Ruby who watched her in return with that direct pale stare of hers.

“Snow’s coming back? For definite?” Ruby brightened at the prospect and Regina felt a little…hell, she felt guilty.

“If there’s one thing the happy couple do, it’s _find_ each other.” Regina huffed out a breath.

“I’m familiar with the phrase.” Ruby pursed her lips and mulled the other woman over. She shifted her weigh onto one foot and narrowed her eyes. “Doubts such as?”

“Well, I’ve renounced my evil ways but nobody said I couldn’t be…mischievous.” Regina tilted her head and smirked. She didn’t even know if she was toying with Ruby or actually wanted to make Charming’s life a little miserable upon his wife’s return.

“Mischievous?”

“I’m on this new Redemption Diet. Best way to shed Evil according to all sources. Apparently having fun and making friends is good for me.” Regina shrugged a shoulder like it didn’t matter either way to her. “Friends are still something of a foreign concept to me but I am in the market for a partner in crime.”

Regina didn’t look at Ruby but Ruby studied her intently. She realised then, not just from her stance but from the scent of nervousness coming off her, exactly how much it taxed Regina to stretch out a hand of friendship like that. Ruby had the very real sense that –should she shoot the idea down- Regina would be hurt and that…Ruby didn’t want to do that.

For the first time in a long time, Regina didn’t reek of pain and Ruby didn’t really want to see the return of it. Especially now that she had seen there was a funny, caring, woman buried under all the cruelty.

Just a glimpse, just a hint, but Ruby had seen it.

“Mom!” Henry called out and Regina smirked. “I’m hungry!”

“Well, I’d better get going.” Regina pressed her lips together into something of a sad smile and Ruby caught her arm before she could make her getaway.

“We’ll speak more of this, you and I.” She waved between them with her notepad. “Meet me here for brunch tomorrow. I haven’t been naughty in far too long.” Ruby winked at Regina and then hurried back to the bar. Grumpy was grumbling about needing a refill.

Regina, smiled and headed towards the back of the diner where Henry and Charming sat. She was glad they’d picked the back so she could see everyone and be near the emergency exit.

Just because she was making friends didn’t mean she didn’t want to have an easy out should a wild mob appear.

“Hey, mom, look who I found.” Henry knelt on the bench in the booth so it was only when she got closer that she saw there was someone else sitting there with her son and the prince.

“Regina.” Daniel stood out of the booth and waved for her to sit in by the window.

“Daniel.” Regina was suddenly acutely aware of exactly how ridiculous she had to look and faltered.

“Daniel kept a table for us.” Henry supplied when Regina managed to force herself into the booth.

It meant she would have to vault either over the back of it or across the table to get out should the need arise.

“So we can all eat dinner together.” Henry finished on a smile and Regina cast a glance at Daniel who was sitting far too close for her peace of mind.

“Yay.” She said weakly.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15 – Awkwaaard…**

 

Regina shifted in her seat and tried not to look as terrified as she felt. Yeesh, give her angry mobs and flaming pitchforks any day.

She was intensely aware of how close Daniel was and she was trying to beat down the urge to crawl all over him and stick her tongue down his throat.

She loved him, heart and soul, head over heels, of course she loved him but she _wanted_ him too.

He had damn near set her hair on fire with his kiss the night before and she had realised fully how much their relationship would be changed if she allowed him closer. She wasn’t an innocent little girl anymore. She was a grown woman with more than a little bit of a sex drive and he was an exceedingly attractive man. That, coupled with having wanted him for forty years and finally being confronted with him again, left her more than a little frustrated.

Regina studied her pink stained hands, then again, there were multiple reasons she held herself back.

For a start, Daniel might not be alone in there. Hyde could be lurking under the surface and Regina could think of few worse places for something like him to manifest other than between her legs. Secondly, she definitely wasn’t the innocent teenager she had been when they had first fallen in love. She knew all about sex and all about what it could be used for –physical pleasure being the least of which. Not only that, but she was so accustomed to pain that…well, she had developed a bit of a taste for it.

Could Daniel, her sweet and kind man, bring himself to hurt her?

Not badly, she didn’t want him to spill blood and crack bones, but she wanted to be restrained, she wanted him to be stronger than her. To hold her down and prove himself her equal, to set his teeth to her neck and fuck her until she ached.

What if he couldn’t? What if she was too broken for him?

“Regina?”

“Hmm?” Regina lifted her head and found David looking at her.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” The lie came automatically and she realised he saw it immediately. She shook her head and heaved in a breath.

Friends. Right. She supposed she had to start somewhere.

“I’m just tired.”

David smiled, realising she had adjusted what she’d said. For him.

“You’re really not hurt?”

“You hit like Snow.” Regina dismissed it with a small smirk and David chuckled.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” Regina pressed her lips together when David nearly flinched.

She looked out the window. Damn it. She was a cat on a hot tin roof. She didn’t know how to do small talk. She didn’t know how to babble on, talking constantly but saying nothing. If she spoke, it was for a reason and people listened because of it. It was all new and scary and she was trying very hard not to just teleport away and hide in her lair.

Still, she’d been given a second chance and she wasn’t about to just give up on it. She’d never surrendered a day in her life and she wasn’t about to start now.

“So,” Henry said loudly, “what you been up to, Daniel?”

Daniel looked a little startled at being the centre of attention but rallied himself.

“I’ve been working a lot, for the Dunbroch Clan at the Ugly Duckling bar.” Casting a sideways glance at Regina to see a distinct lack of surprise, he realised she must have been keeping tabs on him via other means. Most likely long haired doctors that had named themselves his minder.

“You work in a dive? Cool.”

“Henry.” Regina spoke in mild rebuke and Henry looked at her askance.

“What?”

“It’s hardly their fault it’s a dive, is it?” She shifted in her seat and looked out the window again.

Everything. Everything here was her fault. The broken families, split up by the curse, the animals trapped in human shapes, the way Gepetto’s shop sign kept falling squint, Rumple’s limp (not that she really felt badly about that one), the potholes in Main Street and the fact that a proud and royal clan had to work and live in a dive when they had come from a wild kingdom and a sprawling castle…how could Daniel possibly love her in return?

Once he realised the true extent of the suffering she’d caused…he’d leave. He’d despise her, just like everyone else did.

“They like it.”

Regina whipped her head around to look at Daniel.

“Eleanor loves the bar, she says it’s just like home but without all the half nudity and now her children have access to modern medicine.” Daniel smirked at her.

“She still wants to ‘give ye a leatherin’,” Daniel mimicked the queen’s accent, “but she’s adapted to her life here.”

Regina had no response to that.

“So you’re getting on well there?” David tried to steer the conversation onto a subject that would make Regina less twitchy.

“Yes. They’re all kind people, the patrons have learned not to get too boisterous while I’m there and –even if they’re drunk enough to do so- it’s short work to inform them of the error of their ways.”

“You hate taverns.” Regina murmured. “You hate brawling even more.”

“But I _am_ good at it.” Daniel shrugged.

“You could work in the stables again.”

“They don’t have any positions available.” Daniel smirked, at least she was talking to him. “I checked.”

“I’m sure arrangements could be made.” Regina looked up when the table went quiet. “I meant in their budget. Someone could take a look at their books. I’m sure that many children who wished they could ride in the Enchanted Forest now have the opportunity to do so. Say what you like about my curse, but it did give people a lot more disposable income. They could probably do with another instructor.” Regina hunched her shoulders and folded her arms on the table top. “That’s all I meant.”

An uncomfortable silence was broken only when Ruby arrived to take their order. Regina ordered a pint of soda and told Ruby to surprise her with the rest of the order, just so long as there was a lot of it. She wasn’t in the mood to remind herself that she knew the menu back to front because she’d been looking at it for nearly thirty years.

“Mom?”

Regina tore her tense gaze away from the window and softened a little when she looked at Henry.

“Could we maybe go riding tomorrow? I think I’m ready now. Tonto says I can ride him.”

Regina blinked at him.

“Tonto. My horse. He told me his name. I think that means I can ride him now.”

Regina frowned, mystified, and then cast a glance at David who shrugged and smiled.

“And you want me to teach you?”

“Daniel says you’re really good with horses.” Henry pointed to Daniel.

“I thought David was teaching you.”

“Yeah, he is but…I wondered if it was something we could do together. You and David are kinda friends now so…I thought it might be fun.”

“I don’t mind.” David volunteered.

Regina looked down at Henry’s hopeful face and smiled.

“Of course I will.”

“Tomorrow?”

“It’s not like I have anything else to occupy my time with.” Regina smirked and Henry beamed.

“We can meet you at four then?” Henry said this to Daniel and Regina stilled.

“We’ll be waiting.” Daniel smiled in return and Regina darted a look between them.

She felt the walls closing in.

“Daniel’s taking Merida to the stables tomorrow so they can go riding. We can all go together.”

Regina narrowed her eyes at Henry. Foxed again.

“That sounds great.” David chimed in and Regina levelled a look at him too. Just for good measure.

Regina gave very real consideration to just teleporting away.

“We won’t be able to go very far.” Regina finally mustered a response that didn’t involve mentally setting fire to people. “Henry can’t ride.”

“He could have his first lesson and ride with one of us.” Daniel spoke blandly. “I know that’s how you preferred to learn.”

Regina looked at him, her gaze raking him and spoke before she remembered her audience.

“That had a lot more to do with you than it did the horse.”

Daniel grinned and she sharply looked away to find David staring at the ceiling and trying not to laugh.

Henry looked confused but decided not to question it. His mom sure did act weird around Daniel.

“Drinks for this evening’s actors.” Ruby appeared at the table and flourished their drinks down in front of them.

Regina seized on the distraction and spent an inordinate amount of time checking to see if there were enough bubbles in her soda and strongly considered making an excuse to go up to the bar and ask for it to be turned into a float with some strawberry ice cream. She didn’t usually prescribe to so much sugar but using the magic and the lack of food all day was taking its toll. Regina sipped on the soda and stared determinedly out the window.

Maybe if she ignored the need to leap out of it, it would go away.

“Mom?”

“Yes?” Regina blinked out of her fantasies of escape and focussed on Henry again.

“When are you and Daniel going to go on a date?”

Regina went completely still and didn’t have to look at Daniel to know that he had turned to face her.

“Yes, Regina, when?”

Regina gulped audibly and looked between both of them. She felt the walls rising again, closing in and her hand white knuckled on the edge of the table. She very nearly summoned her magic but David, as was his want, came to her rescue.

“When she’s finished on the project I have her doing.” David sipped from his beer and looked between Daniel and Henry with a warning undertone. “Regina is working on something magical to keep the town safe. Aren’t you?”

Regina looked up at David and could have happily kissed him, she felt something unclench within her and nodded.

“Yes. I’m going to start on it tomorrow night.”

Daniel rumbled a sound deep in his chest that might have been disbelieving but let it drop.

“I suppose I’ll just have to take what I can get then.”

Regina shifted uncomfortably and didn’t respond.

This was torture.

How did normal people _do_ this?

 

_**Later…** _

 

“Have you managed to unclench a little?”

Regina, who had been trapped into Daniel escorting her home again, looked up at him for just a second before looking sharply away.

She hugged herself and Daniel shrugged from his jacket, deliberately mistaking her actions for a shiver of cold. He wrapped the dark leather that smelled of him around her.

“Not really, no.” Regina decided not to fight him and tugged the jacket tighter about herself instead. It was still warm from his feverish body heat.

He was hotter now, Rachel had said, just naturally ran at a higher temperature than everyone else.

“Do I frighten you that much?”

“No. Not you.” _Hyde, maybe, but not you._

“I’m sorry, for cornering you when Henry asked about dating.” Daniel was quiet a moment more. “What _is_ dating anyway?”

Regina blinked and actually stopped walking before she threw her head back and laughed. It lasted a little too long. She only stopped when Daniel’s fingers touched the corner of her mouth and then she sobered up real quick.

“It feels like centuries since I saw you smile last.”

“It feels longer since I meant it.” Regina didn’t move away from his finger brushing over her lip.

They stood in the middle of Main Street, anyone might see. Yes, Daniel had sat and dined with her but that could have been explained away by him joining Henry and David and her just happening to be there…no one would assume that someone would want to spend time with her. No one liked the Evil Queen.

“Not here.” She murmured, but still didn’t retreat.

“Why not?”

“I’m dangerous.”

“Not to me.”

“I attract it.”

“You certainly attract me.”

Regina smiled again and forced herself to sober.

“I don’t want to get you hurt.”

“Then don’t send me away.”

“Daniel, I’m not…I don’t know if I can be who you need me to be.”

“I don’t need you to be anything but with me.” Daniel reached up and cupped her face in his hands. “I don’t need anything but you.”

“That’s crazy.” She reached up and held his wrists in her hands but didn’t try to part them. “You can’t make someone else responsible for your happiness. It doesn’t work.”

“I can’t help it. I love you.” Daniel pressed a kiss to her forehead and Regina closed her eyes, shivering.

“What a cruel thing it is.” She whispered. “Love, what a cancerous thing, a slaver of the heart. I live in your thrall, Daniel. You make me helpless. I don’t like being helpless.”

“You only feel helpless because you’re trying to fight it.” Daniel bent a little so he was at eye level with her. “If you accept it, if you accept me, than you will be so strong for it. I promise you.”

“You’ve never made a promise you’ve kept.”

Daniel jerked as if she’d struck him and dropped his hands. He retreated from her a step and stared down at her.

“I didn’t mean to die.”

“And I didn’t mean to go mad, but here we are.” Regina hugged herself, bereft of his heat and his touch but too broken to let herself have it.

She was damned if she did and crushed if she didn’t. Gods, this man tortured her.

“Regina, I’m back, we have a second chance.” Daniel didn’t try to touch her again, he had the feeling it didn’t help his case. At least not now. “Don’t throw it away.”

“I need to…to try and be better for me. By myself. If I…if I pile it on you again and something happens then…then the Dark One will have to move over.” Regina forced herself to meet his eyes but she couldn’t hold it. “Do you understand? Do you recognise the forces you toy with when you court me? You’ve already made me stronger, Daniel, and all it’s done is made me that much more dangerous.”

“I’m NOT going to die on you!”

“You just said you didn’t mean to do it the last time!” Regina hissed at him, getting more frightened which just made her angrier. “You are still only human. Even now, coming back from the dead, you are still a man and I’m not even mortal anymore!”

Daniel straightened, his eyes going wide.

“What do you mean?” Regina stood there, chest heaving, the twilight grey of encroaching night gilding her skin.

She hissed a breath between her teeth and rubbed at her forehead. She hadn’t meant to say that. She had NO control when it came to him. He ripped away everything until she was that frightened subjugated little girl again.

“People –creatures- of my power do not age. The magic doesn’t allow for it. I’ll outlive you. If it’s not now –it will be later- you’ll die on me all over again.” She looked down at her hands. She would give anything for it to be different but it wasn’t. Even with all the power rushing through her like blood through her veins, she couldn’t make him immortal.

“No, I won’t. I’m NOT human anymore. Look.” Daniel turned from her and studied the street a moment, wondering how to show her, then his gaze landed on one of the trucks she had levitated earlier in the evening.

Striding over to it, looked it over and decided how best to do it.

“Daniel, what are you…oh…my…” Regina stammered into silent shock when Daniel crouched and gripped the front bumper of the car.

With a single heft of effort, he bounced it up off its front wheels and then ducked beneath and seized it by the undercarriage and the axle. With a snarl of effort, Daniel heaved and lifted. The whole thing. He lifted the pickup over his head. With his bare hands.

“See?” Daniel pushed and bench-pressed a goddamn Buick. “I’m stronger now. I can protect myself. You needn’t be afraid for me.”

Regina made a very high pitched sound that eked out the back of her throat.

No. Not this. Hyde. No.

Regina’s mouth opened to speak but she couldn’t make any other sound except for a pained wheeze. Her eyes were screaming when she realised she was probably right. She’d had the hope, the wilful stupidity that maybe Whale hadn’t used Hyde’s heart, or that he had at least put it into something else but now…damn.

“Don’t be afraid.” Daniel misread her reaction and carefully lowered the pickup back to the street, he cautiously approached her. “I’ll never hurt you.”

“You never mean to, no.” Regina murmured.

The worst thing was the hope. She tried to steel herself against it, tried to stamp it out of her heart, but it was always there. The hope that maybe –just maybe- he was right. Maybe he was immortal now. Maybe being brought back from death made him immune to it. Maybe he could stay with her.

“It doesn’t hurt me.” Daniel gripped her shoulders, rubbing her arms, trying to comfort her. “I feel fine. You don’t have to worry for me. Rachel says that my new heart isn’t strained in the…”

“Rachel?” Regina lanced him with a glare.

“Doctor Towers.” Daniel continued warily. “She did some tests. To make sure my body could take the strain of all the strength.”

“Rachel _knew_?!”

“Uh…” Daniel wavered, he’d never seen Regina angry before. Not like this.

Regina’s eyes flashed purple and he tightened his grip on her arms. She wasn’t leaving him behind again.

Luckily for him, that was not her intention or she’d have sheared both arms off at the elbow when she disappeared.

Daniel blinked blearily at the purple smoke dissipating around them and found himself on a nice street in a quiet part of town.

Regina had already twisted out of his hold and stormed up the garden path of the four storey granite house. She flicked her wrist and the door exploded off its hinges.

“Regina!” Daniel hurried after her. He didn’t know where they were but he could sure as hell make an educated guess. “Regina, stop!”

Daniel barrelled into the house and stalled at what he saw. The wallpaper. The wallpaper was alive.

“Get the hell out of here, you bitch!” Eugene, uncaring of living sunflowers peeling off the walls, hurdled the couch and flew at Regina, swinging a baseball bat with extreme prejudice.

It shattered.

The hardened pine of the bat crashed into Regina’s cheekbone and exploded into shrapnel, pattering harmlessly away from her and tearing into Eugene’s bare chest and arms.

With a wave of her arm, the sunflowers descended on Eugene and wrapped around his arms, legs and neck. She clenched her hand into a fist and the flowers hoisted the struggling and screaming man up off the floor and slammed him into the ceiling.

Regina pinned him there and turned her full and burning attention on Rachel, who was hurriedly buttoning her shirt and trying to keep her composure.

“Good evening, Regina.” Rachel glanced up at Eugene, relieved to see him still breathing and struggling. “Daniel.” She nodded to him.

“The pictures, of his heart, with the ultrasound, did you take them?”

“Yes, I did the ultrasound the day you abandoned him in the hospital.” Rachel’s voice was tight, she looked up at Eugene again. “Put him down.”

“The ultrasound, I need to see it.”

“Put him down, Regina.”

“You’re not hearing me. The ultrasound. Now.”

“No, you’re not hearing ME,” Rachel spoke with the command of a doctor and doctor trumped queen. “Put. My. Husband. Down.”

“Or what?”

“Regina, these people have been nothing but kind to us.” Daniel tried to diffuse the situation.

“We shall see.” Regina murmured and tilted her head. “Well?”

“Put him down or you get nothing.” Rachel drew herself up to her full height. A full three inches shorter than Regina. “I can promise you that.”

“What makes you think I won’t kill him?”

“Regina, don’t!”

“This is what I am!” She rounded on Daniel, a roar in her voice. “This is what I do. I have been torment to a world, horror to thousands and death to hundreds. I cannot be another way.” She turned back to Rachel. “All hail the Evil Queen.”

“What? You think you can’t be loved so the only thing left is fear?” Daniel demanded of her.

“I wonder if it is better to be loved or feared, which would you prefer, doctor?” Regina never looked away from Rachel.

“I imagine the problems truly arise when neither is applicable.” Rachel’s poker face was fantastic. “Lower my husband right now.”

“You are disobeying me. Disobedience is not tolerated.”

“This isn’t the Enchanted Forest and I am NOT one of your subjects. Let Eugene go.” Rachel sucked in a deep breath and steadied herself. “I know you’re not going to hurt him, if you were going to, he’d be dead already, but I would like to know why you’re so scared.”

“I’m only afraid when I’m not in control.” Regina pointed up at Eugene’s futile struggling. “That’s hardly the case here.”

“Really? You come in here, blowing the door off the hinges, screaming demands and taking somebody hostage, _that’s_ you in control?” Rachel arched a brow. “Try again.”

Regina’s jaw clenched so hard it clicked and she rocked back on her heels, sucking in a deep breath.

Eugene dropped from the ceiling with a yelp and the wallpaper receded back into its original form. Regina looked at the floor a moment and then tossed her head, shaking her hair back.

The door leapt back into its frame with a thud. Even the baseball bat repaired itself.

“I’m…sorry.” Regina spoke after a moment. “I was…concerned.”

“I can see that.” Rachel dropped to her knees beside Eugene, checking him over.

Regina had arrested his fall at the last moment to save him from hurting himself and he appeared to be completely healed from the baseball bat shrapnel too. It would seem that Regina genuinely was sorry.

“I need to see his heart.” Regina would not be dissuaded.

“Then why don’t you just rip it out? You’re good at that.” Eugene spat at her and hauled himself to his feet, planting himself between Rachel and Regina.

“I’m a little rusty, can I do a test run on you?” Regina lifted her hand and stepped towards him.

Daniel hauled her back.

“Stop it!” He spun her to face him. “Stop this now.”

“I can’t!” Regina shook him off. “This is who I am.”

“No it’s NOT!” Daniel thundered at her. “You can’t drive me away, not like this, not with this stupid show you’re putting on, so stop it! I’m NOT going anywhere! What do I have to do to get you to believe me?!”

“I’m not sure, maybe it’s the same thing I have to do to get you to believe me.” Regina turned back to Rachel, dismissing Daniel for the moment. “The ultrasound?”

Rachel heaved a sigh and Eugene turned to look at her.

“No!” He threw his arms wide. “No way! She’s crazy!”

“Yes, she is,” Rachel agreed, “but she’s not dangerous. Not to us.”

“Our front door disagrees!” Eugene waved at it though it looked perfectly normal.

“If she wanted us dead, no one would ever find the bodies.” Rachel glanced at Regina who didn’t seem offended by the conversation in the slightest.

Most likely because it was true.

“If I show you the ultrasound, you’ll be appeased?”

“It’s possible.” Regina nodded shortly.

She was still struggling with the need to peel something apart right down to the bone, but she was slowly winning her sanity back.

“Well, then, it’s settled. This way.” Rachel spun away and headed deeper into the house.

Regina stepped around Eugene like he was a piece of furniture and Daniel followed, apologising for her. Rachel led them all into her home office and tapped her computer into life. She rummaged amongst her purse sitting on the chair and pulled out a pen drive. Slotting it into the USB port, she brought up the video files of the ultrasound.

“You have this at home?” Regina’s voice was a study in neutrality. Getting the blood lust to recede was no small undertaking.

“I have it for further study.”

“You didn’t tell me that.” Daniel spoke, beginning to get worried himself. “You said it was fine.”

“It IS fine. That’s what is so unusual.” Rachel reached over to switch on the flatscreen television she had mounted on the wall and then the video of the ultrasound suddenly flared to life on it.

Daniel watched with fascination, the magic in this world didn’t come from sorcerers and witches, but it was certainly just as fantastic. To him at least.

“What do you mean?” Regina folded her arms over her chest to restrain herself.

Both Daniel and Eugene stood behind her and –while she could just about handle Daniel being there- Eugene being where she couldn’t see him had set her internal terror alert to Arterial Spray Red.

“Well, for all intents and purposes, Daniel is recovering from open heart surgery. He should be flat on his back and doped up on morphine still, not out and about throwing brawlers headlong out of bars.”

“Sorry?” Daniel failed to see how his healthiness was a bad thing.

“The point is, your body isn’t acting in a way that is normal. Which means I can’t predict it, which means I have no idea what’s going on or what’s coming next.” Rachel shrugged her shoulders. “So I brought this home to take a better look.”

“What did you see?” Regina’s lips pressed together and she practically vibrated with impatience.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Regina arched a brow and looked at the ultrasound.

The picture was grayscale and a little fuzzy but even she could see outlines and shapes. Something pulsing. Like a heart.

“Well, all internal organs were present and correct but it was the absence of something that was so conspicuous.” Rachel pointed to the pulsing thing in the ultrasound. “This is Daniel’s heart. Strong, healthy, good pulse…no scarring.”

She looked at her audience and realised that they weren’t following.

“Daniel’s chest should be riddled with scar tissue. As far along in his recovery as his demeanour suggests, you should see walls of scars from where Whale opened him up and went digging around. There’s none of that.”

“What about the heart itself?” Regina pressed on. “Is it…abnormally sized? It did come from someone else after all.”

“Aside from the distinct LACK of things wrong with it, there’s nothing abnormal with Daniel’s new ticker. It’s large, but he’s a big guy, it’s got four chambers, goes like a steam engine and seems to cope with any amount of strain that a body could put on it. Your man here is as about as healthy as anyone has a right to be.”

Regina let out a slow and shuddering breath. She smiled. Hyde’s heart had been HUGE. She’d needed both hands to haul it out of his chest, to wrestle it from within his ribcage. Easily twice the size, nearly thrice, that of a regular man’s heart.

“What about immortality?”

Regina’s eyes snapped open at Daniel’s words.

“What about it?” Rachel frowned.

“Regina says that people of a certain strength stop aging. Could that happen to me?”

Rachel hummed in the back of her throat and switched her television off. She spun her pen that she had used as a pointer over and over in her hand.

“That would mean…regeneration at the cellular level the likes of which I’ve never seen. I would say that’s science fiction but so is raising the dead.”

“Science fiction like having open heart surgery with no scarring afterwards?”

“You should be on a cocktail of anti-rejection meds as well…and you’ve never needed them.” Rachel planted her hands on her hips and shook her head sharply. “This is conjecture. There’s no way for me to be sure in a matter of days. It would take years to see what effects were –or in this case, weren’t- occurring. I have no idea how to test for immortality.”

“I do.” Daniel reached out, snagging Regina’s sword from where it was sheathed at her hip, and drew it with a hiss.

“Daniel!” Regina realised what he was about but even her magic wasn’t fast enough to stop him from laying the blade over the back of his forearm and dragging it across.

Daniel hissed at the pain and blood welled.

“Oh my god, Daniel, no!” Regina rushed forward, intending to clap her hands over the wound and seal it but Rachel grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

“It’s not life threatening, let me see.” Rachel drew Daniel’s arm closer, intending for a cursory examination before she fetched her gloves but...

“Holy crap.” Eugene murmured, looking over his wife’s shoulder to see Daniel’s arm.

It was healed. Not completely, the cut hadn’t disappeared, it was a raised pink welt, but it was sealed. The blood…he seemed to be sweating it _in_ the way. Absorbing it back into his skin.

“Incredible.” Rachel breathed.

“Stupid!” Regina shoved Daniel in the chest.

“No. It was the only way to know.” Daniel caught Regina’s hands when she tried to shove him again. “This is good.”

“In what way?!”

“Now you’re out of excuses.” Daniel smiled at her and Regina’s temper had taken all it was going to take.

With a wave of her hand she disappeared them both, sending Daniel back to his room in Granny’s and her to her kitchen. She was too much of a mess to deal with him right now.

Which left Eugene and Rachel in her study waving purple smoke out of their faces.

“I don’t think I like your friends.” Eugene coughed and Rachel snorted.

“I _know_ I don’t like yours.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16 – Princesses and Ponies**

 

“Mom, you’re here!” Henry waved as he led a placid pinto out of the stables.

Regina smiled and waved back, he smile faltering a little when David appeared around the other side of the horse, a tense look on his face.

“Tie him up over there, Henry. Just like a showed you.” David spoke to his grandson and the hurried towards Regina. “I have to go.”

“But I just got here.” Regina glanced over at Henry attempting a quick release knot. “Have you already taken him out?”

“No. I need you to. There’s something going on at the diner, Granny wants a word.”

“Is it serious?” Regina dropped her hands into her pockets.

“I’ll know more when I get there, but can you take over from me? Henry was really looking forward to riding today.”

“He was looking forward to spending time with you.” Regina shrugged. “He worships you.”

David grinned suddenly.

“Really?”

“Really.” Regina made a production of rolling her eyes. “My best efforts are wasted on him. He still insists on emulating you despite his superior intelligence.”

David laughed and Regina noticed she was pleased when the tension eased from his shoulders a little. He nodded.

“I was looking forward to today too.” David scrubbed a hand through his hair and huffed out a breath.

“You look tired.” Regina frowned. “You’re going to burn out.”

“Prince Charming does not burn out.”

“Yes, but David Nolan might.” Regina reached out and tugged him to a halt by the lapel of his jacket when he moved to pass her. Her frown deepened. “You can’t keep doing this. Sheriff, Mayor and Agony Aunt all in one. I can’t have you collapsing when you should be looking after Henry. You need help.”

“I have help.”

“No, you have peasants.” Regina corrected him firmly. “People you delegate to. You need someone who can help with the delegating.”

“Yes, well, my current partner in crime is somewhat unavailable. Being a world away and all. The former sheriff with her.” David sucked in a breath and brightened his tone when he realised he was snapping at her.

Far from looking offended, Regina merely blinked at him and waited it out. Regina had faced down dragons, ogres and warlocks-oh-my, David’s temper was something like a kitten spitting at her in contrast.

“My point is, you need someone who can offer you real help, take on the night shift, as it were.”

“And who would you suggest? No one else in this town has experience in ruling and is sane.” David scowled at her.

“Granny? That woman could herd cats. Rapunzel? She was a queen before she came here and a damn good one from what I hear. Or there’s always…”

“You.”

Regina froze and her eyes darted to his. She blinked at him and then laughed.

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Why not?!” David threw up his hands. “You’ve got plenty of experience under your belt, you know how to do everything already and people won’t constantly badger you to do stuff because they know you’re too mean to cave.”

“David, people hate me. They don’t want me as their mayor.”

“We’re not exactly a democracy, Regina, and what I say goes. So, you’re going.” He squared his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height. “To the Mayor’s office. To help me delegate stuff.”

Regina clipped her teeth together when she realised he –him, David Nolan, Prince Charming- was giving her an order. By royal command no less. Well, wasn’t that just adorable?

“You’ll have riots in the street.”

“Don’t care.”

“There are factions, David, factions that could benefit from making you look weak. You make an alliance with me and you’ll dig your own grave.”

“People already think we’re allies, remember? That was your doing.”

Regina scowled. Yes, that one had been her fault.

“As made evident by your continued presence here, not all of my evil schemes worked, obviously there are still a few duds.”

“I’m in charge, do as you’re told.”

“Being in charge is like being a lady,” Regina informed him, “if you have to tell someone you are, you’re not.”

“Whatever.” David growled at her. “Will you help or not?”

Regina twisted her mouth and looked over at Henry petting his horse, chatting inanely to it. She thought for a moment and then heaved a sigh.

“Not with the Mayoral side of things, that would give me too much power over people’s lives again. They’ll never accept it and the last thing you need is a rebellion or someone getting it into their heads that they want to test my non-existent patience with a coup.” Regina hunched her shoulders and shrugged. “They might accept me as a glorified enforcer though. Deputise me.”

“What?” David looked askance at her. “You want a gun?”

Regina blinked at him.

“David,” she spoke carefully, mindful that he was stupid, had been born that way and couldn’t really help it, “think on how much power I would have to give up should I limit myself to a _gun_.”

“Right.” David huffed a sigh and twisted his mouth. “I dunno.”

“Believe me, people will be a lot more comfortable with me threatening them physically rather than fiscally. As Mayor, I would be in charge of taxes, the town treasury and distribution of funds. I would make the laws rather than simply enforce them. It is important that someone would at least give the impression of outranking me.”

David measured her a long moment and then spoke warily.

“You’re still gonna help. Right?”

“Yes.” Regina smiled indulgently. “I shall continue to save your skin when it comes to paperwork and actually running my little kingdom.”

“Great!” David brightened considerably and clapped his hands together, rubbing them together gleefully. “I’ll rustle you up a badge and a uniform.”

“I’m not wearing a uniform.”

“You’re wearing a uniform.”

“David…”

“That would be ‘boss’ now.”

“It’ll be ‘hospitalised’ if you don’t watch your tone.” Regina informed him coolly but he just grinned with her.

“If you wear the uniform it makes you part of my team.” He said softly. “That’ll help with getting people to accept you as well.”

“They’re never going to accept me.” Regina looked away from him but this time he grabbed her jacket and stopped her from walking away.

“Regina, I’m not going to argue that but I accept you. You’re my deputy now.” He nodded with that goofy smile of his. “We’re a team.”

Regina stared at him for a long moment and shook her head slowly.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Get people to…believe in you?” Regina waved her hand helplessly as if that would explain. “I’m a paranoid psychopathic bitch and I want to trust you! It’s crazy.”

“I dunno. Just try to live up to it, I guess.” He shrugged, grinning and he did look better. Lighter.

Regina was a little alarmed that she had just been pinned with the responsibility of a piece of his happiness. She immediately felt scatty and panicked at the prospect of failing him and tried to summon the cold cruelty that would allow her not to care but…gods damn it, it would be like kicking a puppy and Regina had never –not with all her sins- thought to commit wanton animal cruelty.

“Right, now I really gotta go. I’ll see you later.” David touched his hand to her arm in farewell, turning to call out to Henry before he went, and left Regina alone with her thoughts in the yard as he drove away.

“Mom? Mom? MOM!”

“What?” Regina whirled, jumpy, and softened when she saw it was Henry tugging at her.

“You okay?”

“Yes, honey, just thinking.” Regina smoothed his hair down absently, not realising he only allowed it because it soothed her. She rallied herself quickly and threw herself into this precious time with her boy. “So, this is your horse?”

“Yeah, his name is Tonto and he’s really cool.” Henry beckoned her closer to his gelding and Regina smiled, following dutifully after him.

Worrying about her newfound responsibilities as David’s friend could wait. She would focus on her time with Henry for now.

“So,” Regina stood by Tonto’s head and stroked his cheek, “what do you know about riding horses?”

“Face that way.” Henry pointed at Tonto’s head and Regina threw back her head and laughed, the tension of dealing with David melting away.

She had missed this. Forgetting. Henry let her forget. For a few moments, just with him, she was only a mother. With him she was just ‘mom’ and that was enough.

“Yes,” she chuckled, “yes, that is absolutely right. Okay, good place to start it proper attire…”

Regina threw herself into the lesson, loving every second of it. Henry was so eager to learn and –she hoped- not just because he wanted to be a knight but maybe, just maybe, because she was his teacher. In no time at all, they were in the paddock and Henry was circling her aboard Tonto.

David had chosen well. The gelding was about seven with a sweet and patient temperament but there was a streak of mischief in him. He had enough of a personality to be a challenge but so much that he might throw Henry just for the hell of it.

So…maybe Charming wasn’t a _complete_ idiot.

“Alright, very good.” Regina smiled, so proud of her son, watching him walk. She considered a moment. “You want to try a trot?”

“Yeah!” Henry beamed at her but then his smile slipped a little. “He won’t get tired?”

“Oh, no,” Regina shook her head, pleased at Henry’s concern for his animal, “we’ve barely been going an hour. Some horses can run for days at a time.”

“Really?” Henry drew Tonto to a halt, like she had taught him and tilted his head. “I didn’t know that. Do you know everything about horses?”

“No.” Regina shook her head and approached, stroking Tonto’s neck and correcting Henry’s posture with a few gentle nudges, he had a tendency to let his toes slip down. “Not nearly.”

“Must be great to be so good at something.” Henry leaned forward on the pommel of the saddle, stretching his legs a little and then returned to his seat.

Regina tilted her head at the wistful tone in his voice.

“Henry, you’re good at things.”

“Not like you.” Henry looked out over the rolling pastures beyond the fence of the paddock. “Not like David or Emma. You guys are awesome.”

“Well, that’s very flattering, Henry, but you can’t compare yourself to us. We’re all adults…some of us in excess of sixty years old.” She muttered the last to herself and rested her hand on the toe of his boots. “Aside from that, we have years of experience and practice at doing the things we’re good at. You’re just starting, you can already do marvellous things that I couldn’t even attempt.”

“Like what?” Henry looked at her warily and she realised…she realised she didn’t praise him.

Not enough. Not nearly enough. How had that happened?

Regina tapped her fingers on the toe of his boot as she watched him. How could that possibly have happened? She was SO proud of him. Massively so. His smarts, his resourcefulness, his integrity, everything about him. Yes, it had hurt that he’d applied all that to ruining her life, but she was a canny enough bitch to recognise a son worthy of her when she saw him.

“Your drawings, Henry.” Regina spoke softly of the thing she loved most. The reason she had allowed him those stupid comic books. “You’re a wonderful artist. Your characters come to life, your story telling is intelligent and witty and…they move, Henry. Your story’s move in the mind when they don’t in the eye.”

“How would you know?” He frowned at her and her eyes skated away from his.

“I…I broke into the school to look at your portfolio. You didn’t want me there for the art show and…I didn’t want to embarrass you so I had a meeting scheduled that day and I went along…after.” Regina stroked Tonto’s neck and tensed, waiting for the judgement.

“You…broke into the school?”

“Yes.”

“For me? I mean, to see my stuff? ‘Cause you didn’t want to embarrass me, even when I was mean to you?”

Regina smiled wanly.

“Family means looking out for someone even if you get banged up a little bit doing it.” Regina shrugged a shoulder. “It was only my pride.”

Henry giggled and she smiled. He sobered after a moment.

“I thought you hated my art. You always nagged me to do my math homework.”

“That is because I am a mother, it is my prerogative to nag and math is an important skill. You were already good at art and your math grade was slipping…but, no, I didn’t hate your art. I liked the colours. The…the cat was my favourite. The one that got stung by the electric fence and got super powers.” Regina nodded, grinning.

“I threw that away.”

“I know. I rescued it.” Regina sucked in a breath and shook her head. “My point is; you are a clever, talented, young man and you do me proud. Anyone who says different is getting a knuckle sandwich. Now, are we trotting or not?”

Henry grinned down at her and nodded.

“Trotting.”

“Good, turn him out and get him back into that bouncy walk.” Regina backed off and stilled when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

Turning, she saw Daniel leaning against the fence, watching her with a grin on his face.

“Regina.”

“Daniel.”

“What’s she doing here?!”

Regina blinked when a torrent of red hair swung out from behind Daniel and a pair of frosty blue eyes glared at her over the top of the fence. The fierce scowl from the freckled face made Regina arch a brow and she almost growled.

A princess.

Super.

“I thought you werenae allowed out o’ yer house.” The girl, a couple of years older than Henry, hoisted herself up to straddle the fence and glare down at Regina.

“Really?” Regina took in the red hair, the freckles, the attitude…one of the Dunbrochs. Merida. “You and which army could keep me there?”

“I’d no’ need an army.” Merida snorted, folding her arms over her chest. “I’ve faced a witch afore. Ye’d be no different.”

Regina just smirked and switched her attention back to Daniel.

“The last of our party, I take it.”

“She’s not as annoying as she comes off.” Daniel shrugged a shoulder and Regina resisted the urge to climb the fence and then him.

Breeches.

Oh me, oh _my_ , breeches.

Knee high leather boots, a midnight blue tee shirt that sculpted to his arms and chest…Regina looked away before she started drooling.

“Oi!” Merida punched Daniel in the shoulder and he smirked.

“You’re being a brat and you know it.”

“She’s the Evil Queen!”

“And you’ll be Going Home, if you don’t watch yourself.” Daniel levelled a look at her. “Go and get Angus if you plan on riding at all.”

Merida scowled at him, tossed her hair over her shoulder (which took some doing and both hands) and then slung her leg over the fence and dropped to the ground. She dashed across the paddock and –before anyone could stop her- right under Tonto’s neck and over the other side. Tonto gave a whinny of irritation and shied. He was a placid enough horse, but even that had its limits.

Regina’s chest only unclenched when Henry employed the lessons he had already learned and reined his animal in. Hushing him with soothing sounds and clapping a hand against his neck when he quieted.

Regina turned to look at Daniel. Hard.

“She’s not as bad as she’s pretending to be.” Daniel spoke in his defence and climbed the fence too.

Regina was momentarily distracted by such actions in such fitting trousers but quickly rallied her temper again.

“Really?” She planted her hands on her hips. “At the moment, I’m considering taking up hunting once more.”

Daniel frowned a little as he approached her and Regina elaborated.

“Daniel, the only thing I ever hunted was princesses. She’d better watch herself.”

“Mom, I’m okay.” Henry reined Tonto in behind her and Regina turned to look up at him.

“I know you are, honey, but it’s not about being hurt, it’s about a lack of respect. That girl is spoiled and she needs some manners taught.”

“She’s just blowing off steam.” Daniel tried to defuse the situation but Regina was having none of it.

“She’ll get someone hurt if she keeps it up.” Regina’s tone of voice made it clear the person most in danger would be Merida herself if she continued to tug the tiger of Regina’s temper by the tail.

“Mom, please? I just wanna go riding.”

Regina glanced up at Henry and softened a little.

“Alright, fine.” She relented. “I’ll behave if she does.”

“She’s a child.” Daniel reminded her.

“That’s no excuse. Henry’s a child and he’s already defeated an Evil Queen. Never underestimate the plucky child protagonist, Daniel. It never ends well.” Regina strode to the other side of the paddock and climbed the fence herself.

“Where are you going?” Daniel called after her, a little concerned.

“To find us some horses.” Regina disappeared into the opposite end of the stable block and muttered dark mutters to herself.

The last time she’d gone on a ride with a precocious princess, her entire life had been ruined.

Her afternoon was not shaping up the way she had hoped it would at all.

 

_**On the Trail**_...

 

“Gods above, Regina, you couldn’t have picked a more fidgety animal?” Daniel eyeballed Regina’s mount when she shied again and danced across the path.

“She reminded me of Rocinante.” Regina admitted after a moment, tightening her grip on the reins and bringing the mare to heel.

Again.

“In looks, perhaps, but Rocinante was as sweet tempered and willing as you can get. That beast’s more than a few bales short of a harvest.”

“She’s fine.” Regina sighed when Flicka, the highest strung sorrel male you ever did see, gave another little rear and whinny and pranced like a show pony on crystal meth. “She just wants to run.”

“She’s not the only one.” A sullen voice issued from behind them and Regina twisted to see a sulky princess astride a huge black Clydesdale who was far too big for her.

The brute was named Angus and was apparently Merida’s horse from back in the Enchanted Forest. He seemed nice enough, it was a pity the same couldn’t be said for his rider.

“We can’t run here.” Regina informed Merida coolly. For what felt to be the five hundredth time. “The trail is too narrow, it’s not clear and –whilst it’s no never mind to me if you are thrown and break your neck- Angus could get hurt.”

“We can gallop when we get to the beach.” Daniel promised Merida. Again.

“How much further?” Merida heaved a huge sigh and flopped over Angus’ neck in a show of blatant idiocy in Regina’s opinion. Should Angus be spooked, Merida would have little to no hope of staying astride him.

“Not far.” Regina’s voice was stony and she struggled to think of another reason for why she shouldn’t dangle certain princesses from the tallest tree branch until they screamed themselves hoarse and begged to be let down.

So far she was coming up empty, but she was confident that she would either think of a reason or that Daniel or Henry would talk her out of it before it got too far.

Reminding herself of her son’s unusually quiet presence, Regina forcibly reined Flicka in, letting Daniel and Silver pass her, glaring at Merida and Angus and fell into step with Henry and Tonto.

“How are you doing?”

“I…I’m okay.” Henry seemed to squirm a moment in the saddle and Regina frowned.

“Are you sore? Do you want to go back?”

A derisive snort issued from in front of them and Henry shook his head wildly, turning crimson under his helmet.

“No. I’m fine.”

Regina frowned and followed his gaze. Merida had twisted in her saddle, dropping the reins in a completely idiotic and now familiar show of arrogance and turned sharply away from glaring back at them when Regina tilted her head in silent warning. Ah.

“Henry,” Regina murmured to her son, “it occurs to me that you have terrible taste.”

“What do you mean?”

Regina cast her son a look and Henry ducked his head, flushing an even darker red. Regina softened and reached out, squeezing his shoulder. She couldn’t think of anything to say, this was not a thing that she could discuss with him…he really did need a father.

Regina found herself bizarrely glad that Henry had David and dropped her hand only when Daniel reined Silver to a halt and twisted to look back at her.

“Which way?”

“Left.” Regina nudged Flicka with her heels and put up with the flighty mare’s prancing so that she drew level with Daniel and his white stallion. “The beach is this way.”

Regina had just about resigned herself to the afternoon being interminable but survivable (for some at least) but that all changed when they rounded the bend in the trail and the stretch of gold sand that was the Storybrooke beach came into view.

“Yes! Gallopin’ time!” Merida whooped. “C’mone, Henry!”

Merida gathered her reins in one hand and whipped them over Angus’ neck sending them slapping down over Tonto’s rump with a crack of leather on leather. Tonto, badly startled, squealed and reared.

Flicka shrilled a whinny too, dancing off the path, so Regina could do nothing when Tonto caught the bit between his teeth and bolted.

“Henry!” Regina watched her son fly by on his horse, closely followed by the black avalanche of muscle that was Angus and her eyes met Daniel’s for one stark moment.

Regina didn’t hesitate. She snatched up a handful of mane, rose in her stirrups, sank her heels into Flicka’s sides and let the mare with a brain filled with springs have her head. Flicka’s ears swivelled forward, her legs lifted and she shot off at a speed that caught even Regina’s breath.

She heard Silver and Daniel pounding after her but she was really more focussed on catching Henry and Tonto. Tonto had the lead on them, and he was no slouch in the speed department, but Henry wasn’t urging him on like Regina was her mare. She caught up within seconds, running neck and neck with Tonto.

“It’s alright, Henry, I’m here.” Regina stretched out towards Tonto’s bridle, intending to force him to take his bit.

“No, mom, Merida!”

“That brat is fine.” Regina growled when Henry’s voice caused Flicka to shy like the airheaded thing she was. She wrestled the mare closer again.

“No, the town boundary, mom. It’s close.”

Regina’s head snapped up and she abruptly realised where they were.

Shit.

Henry was right, the boundary wasn’t half a mile ahead of them and Merida was already thumbnail tall in the distance.

“Go, I’m fine.” Henry nodded to her when she looked at him and –she realised with a mix of pride and panic- that he was.

He wasn’t struggling against the strength of Tonto, nor screaming his head off, he was waiting for the panic and the energy to run out and then he’d slow Tonto down like it had been his intention to let him bolt the whole time.

“Alright.” Regina rose in the saddle again and slapped the reins on Flicka’s neck. “Fly!”

And Flicka _did_.

If Regina had thought their pace before was fleet, it was nothing compared to the ground eating stride the mare put on as she seemed to want to snatch a bite out of the horizon. Flicka’s mane and tail streamed out behind her in a fire coloured banner, her hooves thundered on the ground and –had Regina not been so worried about idiot princesses trying to magically lobotomise themselves- she’d have thoroughly enjoyed herself.

The sand passed under them in a blur, the salty wind seared her face and the surf roared against the beach.

“Merida, stop!” Regina called out, closing the gap between herself and the princess by the second.

Merida half turned, enough to show she’d heard, and then leaned further over her horse’s neck. Urging him on.

Regina snarled and urged Flicka faster still.

How did she always end up doing this? Surely this should be a job for Charming, rescuing princesses and all that.

“Stop, Merida.” Regina hurried Flicka alongside Angus and tried to lean across and take Angus’ head as she had Tonto’s. “You’re going to get hurt.”

“I ken what I’m dain’!” Merida slapped Regina’s hand away with the reins and Regina swore.

“The boundary, Merida! We’re too close.”

“Rubbish!” Merida steered the pounding Angus away, nearly letting Regina fall beneath his hooves when she missed his bridle again.

“Screw this.” Regina gripped the reins in both hands and hauled Flicka right into Angus’ path.

The big black gelding squealed and shied away from the fiery mare as the smaller horse bodychecked him into the sea. The surf splashed up over them, dousing them in saltwater, causing Merida to splutter and gasp and Regina threw herself from the saddle.

She caught Merida around the waist, dragging her from her horse’s back and dunked them both into the ocean.

Merida struggled like a cat in a Schrodinger experiment and Regina earned a kick in the stomach for her troubles.

Yeesh, at least Snow had known how to be rescued.

Regina gasped to the surface in time to see a fist swinging for her face and ducked back on reflex.

“You witch! How DARE you touch me!”

Merida swung for Regina again and –whilst Regina appreciated moxy as much as the next person (alright, so that was a lie)- she had no interest in earning a black eye from a thirteen year old.

“Idiot girl!” Regina slapped Merida’s hand harmlessly away, grabbed the little… _princess_ by the scruff and dunked her under the water.

“Witch!” Merida shrieked when she was lifted out again. “Hag! I’ll see ye-glubblubllubble!”

Regina dunked her again.

And again and again.

“Had enough?” Regina held up Merida, who now more closely resembled a half drowned orange mophead than anything else, and gave her a little shake.

“You…you…” Merida spluttered and tried to get all of her hair out the way. “You knocked me over.”

“Well spotted.” Regina didn’t loosen her hold on Merida, fully prepared to douse her again should the situation require it. “You could have been killed. What’s worse, you could have hurt Henry!”

“It was just a wee gallop.” Merida finally managed to dig her way out of her sodden hair.

“Today was the first day Henry has ever ridden.”

“Really?”

Regina stilled at that. So…well, now she might feel a little guilty.

“Daniel didn’t tell you?”

“No.” Merida coughed and Regina realised they were both hip deep in frigid Maine waters.

She dragged the girl ashore and plopped her down onto the beach above the waterline. Flopping down to sit beside her and look out at the grey blue sea. She thought about apologising but realised that she really didn’t want to.

“You could have hurt him.” Regina said instead. “You could have hurt yourself.”

“It’s your fault!” Merida shoved more of her hair back and glared daggers at Regina.

Regina’s look almost caused steam to rise from the wet princess and Merida hurriedly backpedalled.

“I mean…mum’s never liked me doing stuff that’s no’ ‘fit for a princess’.” Merida straightened her posture and put on a more cultured tone in her voice, Regina smirked when she realised she was mimicking her mother. “That and school and the bar and…today’s the first time I’ve bin allowed tae do my ain thing and –even then- I had tae go with Danny.”

Regina looped her arms around her knees and thought about how desperate she’d been to leap onto Rocinante’s back and gallop as far and as fast as they could…shit.

Her life had been a lot easier before she’d learned empathy.

“You could have asked.” Regina looked out at the ocean. “I know what it’s like to…I’d have galloped with you had you just asked.” Regina was aware that the girl was staring at her like she’d grown another head, but gave no reaction to it.

“Oh, aye, I’ll bet the Evil Queen kens fine whit it’s like to be told what to do and where to go and how to be and…”

“And who to marry?” Regina looked Merida right in the eye and the young princess faltered.

They both hurriedly looked away from one another and Regina huffed out a sigh.

“I’d like it if you apologised to Henry.” Regina spoke after a long moment. She hadn’t meant to say the last. The last thing a young girl needed to hear was about Regina being sold into marriage and going completely mad.

She wasn’t good with children either, they had always been so much harder to fool than adults. They had always seen through her masks.

“Not to you?”

“I wouldn’t have been hurt.” Regina glanced at her. “I’d have let you run beyond the border before I hurt myself.”

Regina was forced to look down when cool fingers hesitantly plucked at the sleeve of her shirt. Regina looked down and –it was only when she saw the line of red dripping down her arm- she noticed the cut. The stinging pain of salt water in an open wound assaulted her like a rock to the back of her head and Regina hissed.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Regina peeled back her soggy sleeve to inspect the damage and bared her teeth in a grimace when she plucked the sheared loop of metal out of her flesh.

It was from the horses’ tack, a buckle from the reins probably, and it must have got snagged when she tackled Merida from her saddle.

“Yer bleeding!”

“It’s not fatal.” Regina chuckled at the concern from the usually unflappable princess.

“Quick! Magic it closed!” Merida sat hurriedly up on to her knees and reached for Regina’s arm, her fingers hovering uncertainly. “It’ll get infected.”

“Saltwater is a natural antiseptic.” Regina let Merida look at the wound.

It stung and it looked worse than it was because the water on her skin diluted the bleeding, making it seem like she was about to bleed out, but she certainly wasn’t about to lose her arm over it.

“It’s fine, Merida. I’ve taken a lot worse and lived to tell the tale.”

“Mom!” Henry threw himself down off Tonto’s back, staggering when his legs felt a little numb, but hurried to her side. “You’re bleeding!”

“I’m fine, Henry.” Regina stood and dusted the seat of her jodhpurs off. She was becoming increasingly aware of how uncomfortable it was to be in wet clothes.

“Keep it above your heart!” Henry turfed his helmet onto the sand, gripped her elbow, raising her arm and the small wound above the level of her heart.

Regina sighed but put up with the fussing. She really was fine.

“It looks worse than it is.” Regina made a wordless sound of protest too late when Henry shrugged out of his shirt and tore into the sleeve, shredding it into bandages.

“Why haven’t you magicked it closed?”

“I need to disinfect it first. Which is better done the old fashioned way.” Regina moved to take the strips of shirt from him but he batted her fingers away and bent his head to the task of carefully bandaging her up.

Regina thought it was adorable.

“What happened?” Daniel’s voice cut through the air like a knife and everyone fell silent at his approach.

He had caught both Flicka and Angus and held their reins in his hands, steering Silver with nothing more than his knees. Flicka’s reins had indeed been worked loose in all the shenanigans and were missing the buckle that joined the two lengths of leather together.

“My arm got caught on a loose buckle. It’s just a scratch.”

“Is it really?” Daniel may have been talking to Regina but his gaze landed heavily on Merida.

The girl hunched her shoulders and stared down at her toes.

“Daniel.” Regina moved to take Flicka’s reins from him. “It’s nothing.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Daniel, I’m a woman, I can bleed for a week and not die. It’s barely a scratch.” Regina’s hand rested briefly on his boot. “Don’t make more of this than it is or you’ll scare them.”

Daniel’s only response was to swing down out of the saddle and thrust Angus’ reins at Merida. With both hands free, he turned his attention to Regina’s arm and peeled back the crude bandages to inspect the wound. He hissed in sympathy when he saw it.

“Regina, cats scratch, you scratch an itch, this is a hand long and bleeding quite freely.”

“Which will stop of you bandage it once more.” Regina knew Daniel was right. The cut was quite deep, an angry rip because of how blunt the buckle had been as it gouged into her. “Daniel, we both know I’ve survived much worse. Just put the bandage back on and stop scaring the children.”

“They can do with a little scaring.” Daniel muttered in a low and displeased tone, but moved to redo the bandaging.

“She’s just a child. A bratty one, but a child nonetheless.” Regina closed her eyes so she didn’t wince as the bandage wound tighter around her arm, squeezing the cut ruthlessly closed.

She could feel the burn of her magic attacking it, resetting her body to its original shape. The reason she hadn’t ‘magicked’ it closed was that she needn’t bother. Her body, the magic coursing through it the same way everyone else had blood, would take care of itself.

That and how quickly she healed would tell her how close she was to being immortal. If she was wrong and she hadn’t reached that level of power yet then…well, she’d deal with that bridge if she came to it.

Daniel grunted in the back of his throat when he deemed his bandaging sufficient that her arm wasn’t going to suddenly fall off. His fingers trailed down her arm and he squeezed her hand briefly before turning to look down at Merida.

“This afternoon is over. We’re heading back.”

Merida’s head snapped up and her mouth opened but one look at Daniel’s expression had her clipping her teeth together.

“Henry, you’re going to ride with me, we’re cantering back. Merida, take Tonto’s reins, Regina, try not to gut yourself on any passing branches, hmm?”

“Daniel!” Regina was on the verge of laughing. Until she realised he was serious. “Really?”

“Really.” Daniel’s voice was flat, he was already astride Silver and helping Henry up to sit behind him.

“I’m fine, we needn’t cut the afternoon short because…” Regina trailed off when Daniel leaned down suddenly and was almost nose to nose with her.

“Regina, get on your damn horse before I sling you over my knee and then you’ll have to ride home with a sore rump as well as an arm.”

Regina’s eyes widened and her brows rose. A smirk kicked at her lips and she spun away from him.

“Promises, promises.” She muttered to herself and took Flicka’s reins from Merida’s hold.

Pulling them back over the mare’s neck, Regina set her grip to the pommel of the saddle and hoisted herself up, nearly slipping when pain lanced up her arm.

Merida saved her, lunging over Flicka’s back from Angus’ saddle and managing to tip Regina forward over the saddle rather than flat onto her back in the sand.

Regina glanced hurriedly over to see that Daniel was distracted by talking to Henry and allowed herself a moment to favour her sore arm. Red bloomed behind the bandage and she grimaced in annoyance. Alright, so it might be a little more serious than she had let on.

“Thank you.” Regina turned to Merida who still sat sheepishly on her horse, holding Tonto’s reins in her other hand.

“I’m sorry.” Merida looked out at the sea as she spoke. Evidently not used to apologising for anything.

“I’ll be fine.” Regina nodded.

“Ladies.” Daniel reminded them that he was irritated with everyone except maybe the horses.

“We’re coming.” Regina retorted, beginning to buck at his tone.

“See that you do.” Daniel wheeled Silver, urged the stallion into a trot and then a rolling canter.

“I didnae realise he was so bossy.” Merida let Tonto’s reins out so the gelding would have enough leeway to run alongside Angus.

“Neither did I.” Regina admitted and sighed, settling her injured arm closer to her body. It was going to sting all the way back.

She was _never_ riding with princesses again.

It never ended well.

 

_**The Ugly Duckling**_...

 

“Alright,” Regina pulled the handbrake of her car and turned to look at her passengers. “Ugly Duckling stop, get off here for exchanges to homework and door-manning.”

“Daniel,” Henry leaned forward from the back seat, “do you think Doctor Towers will be here?”

Daniel shoved back the sleeve of his jacket and glanced at his watch. He loved his watch. His own piece of magic.

Time keeping was somewhat of an adjustment to him considering he had grown up with time markers such as; dawn, dusk, morning, noon and afternoon.

“She should be finished her shift by now, she usually swings by to see Eugene before heading home.”

“Mom, I think we should go in. You should get your arm looked at.”

“It’s fine, Henry.” Regina twisted to look at him. “We disinfected it at the stables and it has clean bandaging. There isn’t really anything else to be done for it.”

“You were driving one handed, mom.”

“I didn’t want to pull the bandaging.”

“Mom…!” Henry huffed in frustration. “Please.”

“Henry, this is the Ugly Duckling, not only am I not welcome here, but I am far more likely to be stabbed than aided. I can go to Doctor Towers tomorrow if it isn’t better.” Regina frowned when Daniel got out of the car without another word.

What? He was so pissed at her that she didn’t get a goodbye?

Regina was distracted from watching Daniel flip the front seat forward to let Merida out by Henry speaking again.

“I learned all about infections in science, mom. They set in real quick. Tomorrow could be too late.”

“Henry, it’s going to take more than a broken –yipe!”

Regina was caught completely off-guard when her door was yanked open and a steel band slid around her from behind. Her seatbelt was unclipped and she was dragged from within the car all in one motion. It was only Daniel’s familiar scent that saved him from being immolated out of reflex.

“Daniel, put me down!”

“Henry’s right, you need it looked at.” Daniel grunted when Regina struggled like a cat threatened with a bath.

“Put me down!” Regina twisted again and Daniel was forced to do as he was told when she nearly had his eye out with a stray elbow.

He wasn’t going to be able to hold onto her that way.

“Finally, that’s more –ack!” Regina yelped again when Daniel simply spun her around to face him and then hoisted her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.

She was a lot more helpless like that.

“Daniel, you brute!” Regina’s fist hammered on his back and he took as much notice of it as he would rainfall.

“Lock the car, Henry.” Daniel instructed the boy as he gaped up at him.

“You’d better run when you put her down.” Henry advised, taking the keys from the ignition and doing what he was told. Daniel didn’t look like he should be messed with right then.

“Put me down before I turn you into a frog!” Regina threatened by no means idly.

Not that she was really up for such a complex spell with her arm stinging and such a distraction. The mass differential was a bitch. You either had to go with a huge monster frog, fifty frogs or one frog with this bag of gloopy pink mess on the side.

Still, Regina was willing to try.

“Well, you’d have to kiss me to turn me back, so I guess it wouldn’t be all bad.” Daniel spoke blandly and headed for the front door of the bar.

“Daniel, this is humiliating.” Regina twisted, trying to grab at his face and get him to drop her out of reflex.

“Quiet!” Daniel hoisted her higher on his shoulder and nearly coughed the air from her lungs.

Regina wheezed and mentally added another few items to the torture list.

“I am NOT going into a strange place ass first.” She snarled at him and Henry and Merida both giggled, following behind and trying not to laugh too hard. “And don’t think you two won’t be treated as accomplices.” She levelled a threatening finger at them.

“Maybe you should have just come in by yourself.” Henry shrugged.

“ _Maybe_ I should have been given the chance to be convinced!” Regina struggled again and was beginning to realise that it really was hopeless and it was also very uncomfortable.

“Evening, lads.” Daniel nodded to the men on the door and swung into the bar past their gaping expressions, Merida and Daniel hustling quickly after him.

“Daniel, if you were anyone else I would skin you and have you for a new purse!” Regina –not to be distracted from her diatribe- kept it right up until she was deposited on the floor.

Her head spun from the sudden change of altitude, a condition which was worsened when Daniel’s hands clapped down on her shoulders and spun her to face the rest of the bar.

Silence rippled throughout the bawdy place and Regina’s jaw clenched.

She _hated_ this. Being put on display and paraded in front of the masses. She knew her expression was about five hundred miles from friendly but was quite unable to do anything about it. Her spine had stiffened to a bar of steel and her jaw a line of granite.

She found herself getting wound tighter and tighter and was on the verge of setting fire to something when small fingers found hers.

Regina shivered, throwing off her black mood as a matter of course when she turned to look down at her son.

“Are you alright?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” Henry smiled. “Don’t worry, Daniel won’t let anything happen to you. Neither will I.”

“That’s very sweet, Henry, but if you don’t get behind me in the event of a brawl, you’ll be grounded until you’re collecting social security.” Regina squeezed his hand, managing something like a smile for him. “I am perfectly capable of fending for myself.”

“What is the meaning of this?!”

Regina spun, yanking Henry behind her, when that voice cut through the murmur that had once more taken up residence in the bar. She found a tall woman with long brown hair bearing down on her with a none too happy expression on her face.

“Daniel, I know you’re not due to start for another hour, but you could do yer part to keep the riff raff out until then.”

“Eleanor.” Daniel greeted her cordially. “Allow me to introduce Regina Mills and her son Henry.”

“I know who they are.” Eleanor reached out, gripping Merida by the arm and hauling her away from the Evil Queen and her adopted spawn. “What are they doing here?!”

“You said you wanted to meet her.” Daniel pulled a confused expression over his face. Deliberately playing the simple stable lad, an act he was well familiar with.

“I did no such bloody thing!” Eleanor hoisted Merida behind her again when the girl tried to skirt her mother and speak to her again. “Get out!” She rounded on Regina, speaking one queen to another.

“Presently.” Regina dredged a brittle smile from somewhere and spun on her heel to vacate the premises toot sweet.

“Regina needs medical attention and you did say you wanted to meet her.” Daniel’s hand settled on the back of Regina’s neck to prevent her from going anywhere. “As I was saying; Eleanor Dunbroch, meet Regina Mills. My fiancé.”

Eleanor froze midway through opening her mouth to give her employee a blistering talking to and her eyes darted to Regina, who looked to be in physical pain as a result of Daniel’s words.

She seethed a quiet hiss of breath between her teeth and glared up at him.

“It is beyond me why I love such an idiot.” Regina growled.

“You’re still gonna get married?!” Henry looked between the two adults.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Regina and Daniel answered at exactly the same time. Both of them frowned at the other for their idiotic answer.

“Danny, have ye gone soft in the head?” Eleanor asked as tactfully as she knew how. “I know ye havenae been here long, but she’s the Evil Queen.”

“She is not!” Henry stepped forward and glared up at Eleanor, unable to hold his tongue any longer. “She’s my mom and she’s getting good and you don’t even know her so you can’t say anything about her!”

“Henry, it’s alright.” Regina gently gripped his shoulders and dragged him back a step so he could lean back against her, protecting her.

She resisted the urge to smile. She didn’t have a nice smile, it always came across as a smug smirk that put people’s hackles up.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Daniel smiled.

“Ye might have put a ‘fluence on the both of them, but ye won’t get the chance to do the same to me and mine. Ye’re not welcome here. What’s more…”

“Mum, stop it!” Merida wrested free of her mother’s hold and planted herself between Regina and Eleanor. “She saved ma life!”

“Young lady…what?” Eleanor’s eyes swung between Regina and Merida. “What?”

“She’s making it sound a lot more heroic than it was.” Regina defended herself.

“I was gallopin’ on Angus and I nearly crossed the town border. Miss Mills stopped me and saved me from forgettin’ who I really am.” Merida folded her arms over her chest and stared her mother down. “This isnae the way ye raised me to treat folk that had done me a good turn.”

Eleanor, the wind taken from her sails, clenched her jaw and then looked at Regina again.

“She hurt hersel’ doin’ it too.” Merida wouldn’t let it lie. “Danny dragged her in here to see if Rachel were in. She needs her arm looked at.”

“I owe ye a great debt…majesty.” Eleanor had to work to get the words out. “Please, come away in. Yer supper’s on us the night.”

“Really, there’s no need…” Regina trailed off when Daniel leaned down to speak in her ear so low only she would hear.

“Sit and eat some damn dinner, Regina. You saying it was nothing is saying her daughter is nothing and I do _not_ advise that.”

“…to call me that. Regina is fine and I would like very much to try some genuine Scottish cooking.” Regina forced a smile, one that was mirrored by Eleanor.

Neither of them wanted to be there, but it would seem they had little choice. In that –at least- they were united.

“Rachel’s in her usual booth.” Eleanor turned to lead them deeper into the bar. “I’m sure she won’t mind your company.”

It went unsaid that she was the only one with that opinion.

They crossed the bar quickly and Rachel, her head bent to the task of several patients’ charts she had brought with her for a working dinner, didn’t notice her approach. In fact, she hadn’t noticed the entire exchange at the doorway and remained ignorant of her impending patient until Eleanor announced them.

Rachel sat up and smiled a genuine smile (which very nearly floored Regina considering how their last meeting had gone). Her smile disappeared when she saw the bloodied bandage around Regina’s forearm.

“Really?!” Rachel thumped back against the bench of the booth and tossed her pen onto the table so hard it bounced clean off it and had to be retrieved by Merida. “I can’t leave you alone for five damn minutes without you bleeding everywhere. You’re supposed to look after her.” She levelled that at Daniel.

“I’d put a collar on her if I thought it would help.” Daniel herded Regina into the booth and sat down on the outside of it to prevent her escape.

“I can hear both of you, you know.” Regina grumbled.

She was forced to submit to Rachel opening her medical case and then gripping Regina’s arm, cutting away the bandaging with practiced moves right there at the dinner table. She knew Regina wouldn’t go anywhere else with her.

“What’s good to eat here?” Regina asked the question to the table at large and used her free hand to drag a menu closer.

“Mum does good venison.” Merida spoke brightly from her place on the other side of the booth.

She was sat beside Henry, who seemed to be trying to muscle down his crush to a manageable eight.

“Eleanor cooks?” Regina raised her eyebrows and twisted to look at Daniel. “You can test it first.”

“She’s not going to poison you.” Daniel glared a little. “You caught her off guard, that’s all. She’s really very nice.”

“I’m sure.” Regina still hadn’t forgiven him for inflicting her on such reluctant hospitality.

“Is venison Bambi?” Henry was studying his own menu.

“Of course not.” Regina inhaled a deep breath when Rachel prodded at the wound on her arm. “Venison is Bambi’s _mother_.”

“Mom!” Henry whined and Regina smirked.

“It’s a very tender meat, you’ll like it.” Regina assured him, knowing from his expression that he probably wouldn’t go anywhere near it for the foreseeable future.

“Daniel, hold this.” Rachel held out a Maglite and Daniel slung his arm around Regina’s shoulders to hold the penlight over her arm and better illuminate what Rachel was looking at. “Ah, there it is. Good grief, you’re sweating it out.”

“Hmm.” Regina made a noncommittal sound which turned to a hiss when Rachel gripped the tiny piece of metal still embedded in Regina’s flesh and plucked it free with a pair of tweezers.

With that removed, Regina’s magic went to work on the wound with a vengeance and it barely gave Rachel time to pour alcohol all over it –causing some colourful words to spill from Regina- before it sealed itself.

“Remarkable.” Rachel murmured, running her finger over the raised scab on Regina’s arm. The result of a few minutes’ healing. “I never thought it would be possible for a body to do this by itself.”

“Fascinating. May I have my arm back?”

“I suppose. So long as you promise to look after it in future.”

“I don’t go about with a death wish you know.” Regina defended herself. “This stuff just seems to… _happen_ to me.”

“With alarming regularity.” Rachel drawled in agreement.

“I’ve noticed it’s always when I do good things.” Regina murmured, doing a scan of the bar, noting the exits and who was paying a little too much attention to their little group. She picked out a couple of drunks to keep a weather eye on but didn’t think they’d be a serious threat.

“That’s not true.” Henry frowned at her.

“Saved Snow’s life, fiancé dies.” Regina began to tick them off on her fingers ignoring the collective wince the table gave. “Bring fiancé back from the dead, nearly die from death curse. Save another princess, gouge out a chunk of flesh. Whoever said that being nice never hurt anyone deserves to be dragged out into the street and shot. How did all you GOOD people survive long enough to thwart all my evil schemes?!”

“Most good people aren’t mad as a hatter.” Daniel said conversationally and Regina levelled a look at him.

“That wasn’t very nice.” Regina didn’t deny it though.

“There’s a limit.” Daniel shrugged. “Seeing your blood has always made my mood less than charitable. Besides, you’re _my_ lunatic so I’m granted certain allowances.”

“Yes.” Regina agreed. “You are.”

Daniel turned to her with a grin she returned it with a sickening sweetness.

“But make no mistake, my sweet baboo, as soon as I figure out a suiting punishment, you’re going to pay for this.” She circled her finger to indicate her being trapped in a booth in a bar that she didn’t want to be in.

Daniel just smirked at her. His eyes made a lazy tour of her body and she revised her opinion about him needing sweet and gentle from her. His grin was decidedly wolfish.

Another of Regina’s excuses not to let him in crumbled to dust with his next words.

“Promises, promises.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17 – Wolves in Fridges**

 

“David?” Regina cautiously opened the diner and poked her head inside.

The bell jangled above her, setting her to flinching her way entirely inside. She scowled at the offending tinkling thing, stuffing her hands into her pockets to try and retain some dignity.

“Regina, through here!”

Regina cautiously approached the bar and stepped behind it winding her way through to the kitchen. She pushed open the door with one hand, the other free at her side ready to palm magic at a second’s notice, and stalled when she nearly tripped over the door that lay across the floor.

“Hello.” Regina skirted the door, frowning at it and then looked up at the two occupants of the room.

“Good morning, deputy.” David nodded to her and Regina’s chin kicked up with an unamused expression.

“Really? You’re serious about that?”

“As the grave.” David nodded, his thumbs hitched in his belt.

“Deputy?” Granny piped up. She was standing inside the walk-in freezer looking out at Regina with decidedly less hostility than Regina had expected.

“Charming’s an idiot.” Regina nodded by way of explanation.

“I need someone to help me delegate.” David spoke to Granny.

“And you thought of her?” Granny frowned.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Regina muttered.

“She actually suggested you first.” David smiled at Granny.

“And there was Henry trying to convince me you weren’t evil.” Granny planted her hands on her hips, glaring at Regina. “Imagine wishing that on an old bird like me.”

“What?” Regina defended herself. “This curse was supposed to make you miserable, you’re the one who went and made a successful business out of it.”

“The point is that Granny, Ruby and Rachel –all of them ideal candidates for the job- have things to do. YOU are a free agent and come with your own firepower. You’re doing this.” David spoke firmly and Regina looked sideways at Granny.

“Isn’t he adorable?”

“Regina…” David looked like he wanted to whine but restrained himself admirably.

“It’d go a long way to convincing folks that you’re on the side of angels if you were to officially back, Charming.” Granny thought out loud.

Regina huffed a sigh.

“Please, Regina. I can’t do this by myself.” David tried again and she groaned.

“Fiiiine.” Regina growled. “This lasts for as long as it takes to get Snow and Miss Swan back. I’ll _not_ work for the vaunted Saviour.” Regina stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked as ungracious as she could.

“Now, what did you want because I’ve been here for four and a half minutes and I still don’t have my triple shot.”

“Was that your way of asking for coffee?” Granny spoke with saccharine sweetness.

“Well, if there’s some going I certainly won’t refuse.” Regina spoke primly and stifled a yawn.

After finally escaping the Ugly Duckling and taking Henry back to David’s, she had been up for most of the night reading. She had plenty of things to research, after all; immortality, portals between worlds, binding spells on involuntary transformations, memory recovery…the list was growing by the day. Not to mention several hours plugged into the apple tree trying to tame Storybrooke magic.

The sores on her soul had distracted her, but it was an advantage she didn’t want to give up on.

“I’ll see to it that the savage beast gets her caffeine fix.” Granny spoke to David as she moved towards the bar.

“Pot, this is kettle, you’re black.” Regina snarked at her on her way by and smirked when Granny couldn’t see her. Just as the old woman did her.

“Thank you, Regina.” David smiled down at her and then stepped back, waving his arm to indicate the room. “What do you think?”

Regina blinked at him.

“Is that a joke?”

“No, this is serious.” David frowned at her. “Tell me what you think happened here.”

Regina gave the room a cursory glance, more for his benefit than hers, and looked up at him again.

“My guess is that you and the werewolf came in here, trashed a perfectly good walk-in freezer and staged a clumsy crime scene as some sort of bizarre interview process for me.” Regina gratefully accepted the steaming cup of tar thick coffee Granny handed her when she came back into the kitchen. “Speaking of, where is our resident lycanthrope?”

“She’s gone.” Granny’s tone was flat. Her voice attempting to give away nothing.

“Why do you think we set this up?” David asked instead.

“Really?” Regina scoffed. “David, if there’s one thing I know; it’s crime. This is like _CSI: Kindergarten_. The damage to the freezer is minimal, not what you would get from a rampaging werewolf that has been known to bite the legs of horses with a snip of her teeth. The door isn’t bent or buckled like it would be if she had shouldered it open and it broke the _wrong_ way. The hinges have been sheared so it just popped clean out. I suppose so you could easier fix it. Not to mention you wouldn’t use a freezer as a prison cell for any extended period of time because the occupant would suffocate.”

Regina shrugged and missed the guilty look that washed over Granny’s face.

“As I said, amateur hour.”

“This has been staged?” David pointed to the door and Regina narrowed her eyes.

“Ye-es.” She looked between David and Granny. “By neither of you I take it.”

“We thought it was real. We thought Ruby…”

“You thought she’d gone savage?” Regina frowned. “Why?”

“She didn’t have her cloak. She hasn’t changed in nearly thirty years. There was a chance she wouldn’t be in control and we thought…”

“You thought she’d try and eat the town?” Regina drawled and looked down at the door.

She studied the room more carefully. The door on the floor, the claw marks she could see inside the freezer, the smear of red on the floor that had come from nothing more lively than a defrosting steak…the door in the wall…

“Alright, I might not be an expert in werewolves, but I got close enough to Ruby on the battlefield to notice that she doesn’t have thumbs. If she was in full on wolf mode when she came out, why isn’t there a Ruby shaped hole in one of the doors or windows?”

David and Granny glanced about the kitchen and frowned.

“The diner door was locked when I came in.” Granny murmured.

“The fire escape?”

“It was open. It’s one of those push bar things, she could have hit it as the wolf and opened the door that way.”

“She could have.” Regina tapped at the six inch thick steel door lying on the floor with her toe again. “She didn’t. Someone came in through the front door. Filed the hinges and hid…where would they hide?” Regina spun in a slow circle.

“There’s nowhere to hide.” David shrugged. “Not from a wolf.”

“Not from a wolf intent on eating you, no.” Regina stalked out of the kitchen, but not back into the diner, she headed for the fire exit instead. “A wolf intent on getting back to the woods it loves, however…well, you’d just need to stay out of sight and out of mind. Hold this.”

Regina shoved her coffee cup into David’s hands and then hefted at the fire exit. She shoved down on the push bar and it sprang open. She clipped outside in her heels and looked into the alleyway behind the diner. The door opened out the way. She stood, swinging it back and forth a little as she thought.

“Here.” David caught on at the same time as she did. “He’d have held the door open and stood behind it. Ruby wouldn’t have seen, she’d have just barrelled straight past him and you can see the woods from here.” He pointed down the alleyway towards the green blanket of pines that rose up around Storybrooke. Just a couple of streets away.

“How did I not see that?”

“You didn’t see it because you didn’t want to.” Regina rescued her coffee cup from him and stepped back inside. “You don’t want to believe that anyone in your town would harm one of your friends. I’m the woman that made a career out of hurting your friends. You needed a different viewpoint.”

“I’m not naïve and I’m not stupid.”

“I have not once said that.” Regina was silent a beat. “Today.”

David glared at her though it wasn’t completely seriously.

“I simply meant that I’m a criminal, I think about things in a certain way, a way you are not familiar with.”

“Like how to get away with murder.”

“You know I have.” Regina shrugged a shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. “You’re sure you’ve thought this through? This is kind of like giving a badge to Hannibal Lecter. You’re going to be faced with a heap of grief from a never ending parade of stupid and that’s just when your wife and daughter return. You’ve got the mob to deal with between now and then.”

“With you between me and them.” David grinned.

“David…”

“I’m sure, Regina. You’re getting a fresh start. If Rumplestiltskin can have Belle and George walks the streets free then –by god- you’re going to get a chance too.” David had that determined look on his face. The one of a good man on a righteous mission and Regina realised she’d have a better time of getting the sun to rise in the West than she would getting him to turn back.

“This is a hell of a gamble, proclaiming me safe for the general public, do you really trust me? _I_ don’t trust me.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got things to lose now.” David shrugged a shoulder.

“David, I have never been crazier than when I thought I was losing someone.”

“So long as the crazy is pointed at other people.” David grinned.

“David, I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” He sobered. “You deserve a second chance and I trust you. It’s crazy and stupid and beyond all comprehension, but I trust you to do what’s right for this town.”

“Why?” Regina still couldn’t wrap her head around it.

“Because you have people now. Me, Henry, Ruby, Rachel, Granny, Daniel, we’re all here to look out for you. We’ll keep you right.”

“That’s,” staggeringly stupid, naïve, idiotic, moronic, a break from reality, asking for trouble, “one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.”

David grinned and Regina smiled back in a bemused way. Sometimes she thought she had them all figured out. The ‘good’ people. She thought them stupid and predictable and a constant pain in her ass, not to mention insipid and annoying, but then they went and got her to play along with them –again- and here she was looking at the silver star he was holding out to her.

“Regina Mills, I dub thee first deputy to the Sheriff of Storybrooke, Maine.” David moved when she wouldn’t and pinned the star to the lapel of her jacket. “I’ll get you to swear the oath later.”

“David,” Regina waited until he looked her in the eye, “I swear, to _you_ , that I will try my best not to let you down.”

David tilted his head and rocked back on his heels. He smiled.

“I believe you.”

“Which makes one or both of us stupid.” Regina smirked in a lopsided way.

“Or hopeful.”

“Whatever, I’ve not had enough coffee for this.” Regina swirled the remnants of her drink in its cup. “Another for the road and then we’re going to go and find Ruby. I can’t very well leave my adopted sister in the woods by herself.” Regina heaved a sigh and made a beeline back towards Granny and the coffee machine.

David turned to follow after and then frowned.

“Your adopted what-now?!”

 

_**The Woods...** _

 

“I think you need to invest in some more appropriate footwear.” David mused aloud when he had to wait for Regina to catch up yet again.

“I think I’ll tell your wife, when you _find_ her, you can’t stop staring at my legs.”

David frowned. Touché.

“Oh, fine!” Regina heaved a sigh and purple smoke rolled over her body, warping her clothes until she wore a brown shirt, tan pants and knee high brown leather boots.

A brown leather duster brushed her calves, her silver star pinned to the lapel. She wore a heavy leather belt low on her hips. Several pairs of handcuffs on one hip, jangling from it whilst she walked, and a heavy nightstick secured at the other.

David’s brows rose at the change. Well, he’d said he wanted her to wear a uniform but…

“Ye look like Hitler Youth as done by Gucci.” Granny announced from her vantage point ahead of them.

“Say what you like about them, the Nazis had style.” Regina held out her hands and settled them on David’s shoulders when he gripped her waist and helped her down off a fallen log.

It wasn’t until he released her and turned away from her to hide his smirk that she realised she never would have done that even last week. She blinked at herself and then shook it off. She _was_ changing, she could agonise over it later.

“I don’t think it strikes the proper tone.” David finally mustered his face under control.

“I think it strikes exactly the right tone.” Regina disagreed, as was her want. “Nobody would believe that I was there to protect and serve them. Serve them up on a platter, maybe, but not protect them.”

“Maybe you should try changing that?”

“Listen, David, you have your whole nobility thing going and that works for you. Terrifying people into obeying my every whim is my thing. You knew that when you suggested this hare-brained scheme of yours. If you want to change your mind, I can leave right now.”

“You’re not getting out of this that easily.” David chuckled at her.

“Curses, foiled again.” Regina stopped to pluck a tuft of dark brown fur from a branch and examine it. She stowed it in her pocket.

“Why do you do that?”

“Hmm?”

“Pocket things. You do it all the time. You pick up random stuff and keep it.” David slowed so she could walk alongside him.

“You going to arrest me for thievery, Charming?” Regina smirked.

“No, it’s nothing anyone would miss. They never appear to have much value, you just…collect stuff.”

“Part of being a witch is having a collection of apparently useless things about your person which can be turned into something useful later on.” Regina shrugged. “Old habits I suppose.”

“Is that how you see yourself? As a witch, I mean?”

“No. Not anymore. I’m a great deal more powerful than that. I’m not even just a sorceress anymore. I’m…something else now.”

“Is that bad?”

“That depends. It allowed me to tear out pieces of my own soul with nothing more than a pen and paper.”

“Your _soul_?!” David gripped her shoulder and spun her to face him. “Did you just say you ripped out bits of your own soul?”

“Yes.” Regina frowned. “Daniel reacted like this as well.”

“He saw?”

“He was there.”

“And he didn’t stop you?”

“You should know by now that I’m not easily stopped.” Regina smirked. “Both of you are overreacting. The soul is not this perishable resource that everyone seems to think it is. It grows and changes as you do. You lose and gain pieces of it all the time. Mine was sick, being as powerful as I now am, I could finally see it and do something about it.”

“So you just cut pieces out of it? Just like that?”

“Well, no, it hurt like the proverbial, but they were rotten. It’s no wonder I went as mad as I did.”

“So…that’s why? All the things you did, you did it because your soul was sick?”

Regina looked at him for a long moment, her hands deep in her pockets and an unreadable expression on her face.

“Just yesterday I’d have said yes.” Her voice was quiet, softer than it usually was. “I’d have lied to you and jumped on the excuse but, the truth is, no. I have no excuse for doing the things I did. My soul was broken, yes, and it was done to me in part, but it just paved the way. I might have recovered from the wound, recovered from what was done to me, had I been a good person but I’m not. Being evil, committing atrocities, infected the wound, let it fester.”

“And now…it’s clean? You fixed the damage?”

“No, I actually made it worse, but,” Regina hurried to explain when he looked like he might freak out, “I know it’s there now and I know it’s healing. Before, I didn’t, all I could feel was the hole and –when fantasising about murdering Snow made it feel less like I was hollow inside- I kept doing it. Until fantasies weren’t enough and…well, you know the rest.”

“No.” David shook his head after a moment. “I don’t think anybody does.”

“Well…I’m all shared out for the day so you’ll have to live with my aura of mystique for a while longer.”

“Have you told any of this to Daniel?”

“No.” Regina looked confused as to why she would.

David opened his mouth and then clipped it shut, he pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a sigh.

“The other day, when you were being weird with him, weirder than usual, it was because he saw you do the soul slicing thing, wasn’t it?”

“He didn’t react well.” Regina’s voice was flat. “As I knew he would.”

“Did you explain what you had done and that you hadn’t just tossed away a part of your own being, or did you just open with ‘yeah, so I killed a bit of my soul’ and leave it at that?”

“Maybe…the latter.” Regina looked away from him.

“No wonder he freaked out!” David threw his arm wide. “For all he knew, the woman he loved had gone from being terminal that morning to willingly tearing herself apart in the afternoon. How would you feel if Henry had done something like that?” David regretted his words when Regina visibly paled at the thought.

“David, I wouldn’t even wish that kind of pain on Snow.” Regina shook off the thought of Henry doing that kind of thing to himself. “It was necessary though. I had to put failsafes in place.”

“Failsafes for what?” David frowned, that couldn’t be good.

“The kind of power I have? If left unchecked it would affect things.”

“Things like?”

“Nothing major.” Regina shrugged. “The landscape, weather patterns, stuff like that.”

David took a moment to quietly scream within the confines of his own mind at the thought of the magical equivalent of Mount Saint Helens walking through Storybrooke.

“The point is, it would be a conscious effort on my part to control all that. Can you imagine having to think about breathing all the time?”

“So tearing into your soul meant that you won’t go nuclear?”

“Tearing into my soul meant the spells would stick and I won’t go nuclear _unintentionally_.”

David huffed out a long breath and shook his head.

“You know what? I’ll take what I can get.”

“A lot of people have been saying that. I’ve never tried to be difficult to like, it just happens naturally.”

“You’re not difficult to like.” David sighed and started back on the path again, Regina following him. “You’re actually very easy to like. You made a career out of trying to murder my wife and I, you’re crazy, a mass murderer, lobotomised an entire world and threw my wife and daughter through a portal into another dimension and I _still_ like you.”

“That last one wasn’t intentional.”

David laughed.

“Children,” Granny called from ahead of them, “as delightful as your conversation is, could we please focus on finding my granddaughter?”

“I am focussed.” Regina frowned. “She’s about fifty yards straight ahead of us.”

Granny frowned right back at her.

Regina plucked the piece of fur she had lifted earlier from her pocket and held it up. Small sparks of green magic plumed from it and wafted ahead of her, spiralling past Granny and continuing into the trees beyond. Regina smirked.

“See? Useful.”

David surprised her by laughing.

“Come on.” David preceded her, hurrying in the direction Granny had disappeared, not wanting her to be alone when she got to Ruby. Not that he expected her to be surrounded by dismembered citizens, but…just in case.

He and Regina arrived at the log where Ruby had sequestered herself just in time for her to come round from the deep sleep she had fallen into after some wolf time carousing and it took her about thirty seconds to start freaking out.

Regina stood back at the top of the rise and watched all of this with a benign kind of interest. It wasn’t until Ruby began to get truly agitated that she started down the slope and made a show of bending at the waist to nosy under the log.

“What are you doing? Why is she here?” Ruby, a little slow on the uptake with her wolf hangover, looked blearily between David and Granny.

“Nope.” Regina straightened and propped herself against the log. “No severed limbs, no blood spatter, nor shed fur indicative of a scuffle. I declare you kill free.”

“What? How would you know?!” Ruby squared up to Regina who worked not to yawn.

“My murder sense isn’t tingling.” Regina’s voice was firm.

“Whoop-de-doo!” Ruby threw her arm wide. “We can all go home then!”

“Excellent idea. You must be starved.” Regina managed something like a friendly smile.

Ruby opened her mouth with the intent of tearing Regina a new one for her tone when her stomach yowled at the prospect of food. She clapped her hands over it as if to silence it and then looked guiltily at her friends.

“I am pretty hungry.”

“So you _haven’t_ ruined your breakfast by eating the villagers.” Regina tilted her head, smirking.

“That doesn’t mean I haven’t hurt anyone.”

“Ruby, you know as well as I that werewolves –before they can control the change- act just like normal wolves. They hunt when they are hungry, they eat what they hunt. I doubt very much you hared after someone for a tickle fight last night. If you’re hungry, it’s because you haven’t eaten and undergone two metamorphoses in the space of twelve hours. Enough to make anyone famished.” Regina looked between her companions. “Now that I have saved the day and the furry one’s sanity, may we go back to civilisation?”

David nodded, opening his mouth to add something and cut himself off when his cell phone bleated shrilly in his pocket. Rummaging, David turned away, hauled it out and clapped it to his ear.

Granny and Ruby spoke amongst themselves, the elder checking over her granddaughter for any injuries the night’s festivities might have wrought, but Regina watched Charming.

His tone was terse, he didn’t want to be dealing with this and Regina had the sinking feeling that she was about to be on the receiving end of some delegation.

“What is it?” Ruby demanded as soon as Charming signed off the call. “Was it me? Was someone hurt?”

“Someone left their car outside the cannery, that’s all.” David offered her a smile and rubbed at Ruby’s arms to comfort her. “I need to check it out on my way back into town. Relax.”

“Easy for you to say.” Ruby hugged herself.

“You didn’t hurt anyone. Don’t worry about it. The truck is this way.” David ushered Ruby and Granny back the way they’d come and almost made it to following them before Regina’s fingers hooked in his belt and yanked him back to stand altogether too close to her.

Regina lifted a hand, finger pointed, and sketched a quick circle over their heads. David’s ears popped when something he couldn’t see engulfed them both.

“There, now we can talk.”

“Please, Regina, I’m a married man.” David smirked but it slipped away at Regina’s expression.

“I’ll ignore the gossip. We’re going to find a dead body at the cannery.”

David was silent a long moment and then he mustered himself to respond.

“Have we been naughty?” He asked her carefully.

“Not my handiwork.” Regina hissed an irritated breath. “You’d never find the body if it was me, but look at the entire situation. Ruby’s wolftime, her cloak nowhere to be found, someone broke her out of the walk-in and now an abandoned car at the cannery? People don’t abandon their cars in Storybrooke. This reeks of the same back asswards frame-up that we saw at the diner and you know it.”

“It could have a flat tyre.” David tried to think of an excuse for the abandoned car but Regina did have a terrible habit of being right about the most horrible things. If her ‘murder sense’ was tingling, he would probably do well to trust it.

“And I could braid friendship bracelets for Snow and I.” Regina’s voice was flat. “Send me to see about the car, if I find something bloody, then I’ll call you and _please_ learn something of a poker face between now and then.”

“I dunno if I should leave you on your own so soon.”

“Really?” Regina tilted her head. “ _Really_?”

“If there’s someone out there crazy enough to get into a room with a werewolf of questionable sanity, then they’re probably more than willing to take a run at you. I don’t want you on your own. You’re just arrogant enough to get yourself killed by someone you underestimate.”

Regina rolled her eyes.

“I am more than capable of looking after myself.”

“That’s exactly what I mean!”

“And who am I supposed to take? Henry? No one’s going to want to ride shotgun with the Evil Queen.”

David huffed a breath out through his nose when her status as town pariah came back to bite him. Ideally, he would send Ruby but, if Regina was right, the last place they needed Ruby was in front of her supposed victim’s remains.

“Daniel.”

“What?!”

“Take Daniel. You told me yourself, he’s Superman, and I can one hundred per cent trust him to watch your back.”

“I am not…”

“You will, or you won’t be going anywhere by yourself. I will follow you all day and I will bring Ruby with me.”

Regina’s jaw clenched when she realised he would do exactly that. She fumed for a silent moment, trying to think her way out of it.

“I’ll let you drive the squad car.” He rummaged in his pocket and retrieved the keys from the station. He jangled them enticingly. He saw the thrill that went through her at the promise but she admirably muscled it down in an attempt to remain in a huff with him.

She glared at him for long moments and then snatched at the keys. David was just as quick and his fingers closed over hers and the keys both.

“You’ll take Daniel with you.”

Regina rolled her eyes and his hand tightened on hers.

“Promise me.” David’s voice was steel.

“I promise I will take Daniel with me to the cannery to see the car.” Regina huffed a sigh and yanked the keys from his hand. “Is that all…boss?”

“For now.” David straightened and studied her, worried for her. Annoyed at himself for being so. He really needed to get that chivalry gland looked at. “Check in every hour.”

“That seems like an inefficient use of my time.”

“ _On_ the hour.”

“Fine, every hour on the hour and as events arise. Happy?”

“Middling.”

“Close enough.” Regina jerked her elbow out and popped the spell around them like a bubble.

“Straight to Daniel.” David levelled a warning finger at her. “I’ll be calling him soon to check.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have gotten him that phone.” Regina growled and nodded.

She was irritated on the surface but it really was quite sweet the way he worried for her. It was a novel concept and it made her feel…kind of warm and fuzzy.

Which disturbed her, so she shoved it down to be dissected later.

“Right, talk to you in an hour.”

“On the hour.” Regina waved to him, the keys jangling in her hand and she promptly disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.

Regina reappeared in an unfamiliar place. The room was dark, the curtains shut against the grey light outside.

“Daniel?” Regina’s hands stretched out and she took a hesitant step forward, gasping when she barked her shin against the wooden frame of the bed. “Sonova…!”

Regina bent, rubbing at her leg and froze when something moved.

Bulky, growling, the thing shifted on the mattress making it creak. It rolled onto its back, turned its head to see her and opened its eyes.

Glowing green eyes.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18 – Family Ties**

 

“ _Hyde_!” The name hissed from Regina in time with the roar of the fire she conjured into her palm.

Those green eyes flew wide in alarm and he flung himself from the bed at the same time as Regina loosed the fire in her hand.

“Regina!”

“Bastard!” Regina summoned more fire, twin soccer ball sized spheres, and lobbed one after the other at Hyde in vicious overhand throws.

“Regina, wait!” Hyde threw up his hands, dancing out of the way of the fire she hurled at him and it wasn’t until he crashed into the window and tore the curtains down from it –pole and all- that Regina stalled, lightning coiling around her hands and arms.

“Daniel?”

“Yes! Me!” Daniel slowly rose to his feet, his hands stretched out towards her as if to ward her off. “Please stop trying to fry me.”

“Your eyes were green!” Regina accused him and Daniel just frowned at her.

“They’ve always been blue.”

“Not just now. I saw them in the dark. They were green!”

“Regina, the _alarm clock_ is green!” Daniel pointed to the bedside table and Regina risked a glance over to see that it was true.

A cheap little alarm clock with a green numbered light-up display sat on the bedside cabinet.

“You must have seen the reflection in my eyes…and –like any normal person- decided to try and cook me in my own fat.” Daniel straightened to his full height and tunnelled his fingers through his hair. He looked harassed and rumpled but otherwise completely normal.

Relief poured over Regina like someone had upended a jug of it over her head.

“Oh my god, Daniel!” Regina bounded up onto the bed, running across it and hurling herself towards him. “It is you! I thought…never mind what I thought. Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you?”

Her eyes were all over him, checking his face, neck, arms and chest for burns. A pang of hurt flashing through her when he lunged back from her so she couldn’t touch him.

“Daniel, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” Regina reached for him again and her eyes stung when he pressed himself back against the wall rather than let her near him. “I’m not going to hurt you. Please…”

She couldn’t stand it. She hadn’t realised how much she had believed in him, that he wouldn’t run from her, until he did and…

“Regina, I’ll gladly let you touch whichever part of me you want but you’re on fire.”

“What?”

“Your arms.”

Regina looked down at her arms and hands and made a small sound of surprise when she realised she was still wreathed in white blue flames and sparks of electricity. She’d never done that before. Never been so mad or scared as to compress flames into this purer –hotter- form of electric fire.

“Sorry.” She snuffed the flames with a will and shook her hands to make sure they were all out. “Sorry.” She said again.

“It’s alright.” Daniel reached for her immediately and tugged her towards him, engulfing her in his arms. “I’m fine. You didn’t even scorch me.”

“You’re a lot faster than I gave you credit for.” Regina’s voice was muffled against the wall of muscle that was his chest.

She could hear the thunderous booms of his heart in his chest. The pace had quickened, he had just narrowly avoided being roasted by a witch after all, but it seemed fine. He seemed fine.

She nuzzled closer, allowing herself to this once, and rested her forehead against the cool metal of his silver scar. The hair on his chest was curling and rough, the metal cool and smooth and his skin warm and velvety. She could only imagine the havoc he would wreak on her just in the contrast of their skins when he finally took her.

Regina’s eyes flashed open. When had it turned from ‘if’ to ‘when’?

“Who’s Hyde?”

Regina stiffened in his arms and slowly drew away from him. She looked him in the eye, deep, dark, blue eyes, and swallowed convulsively.

“He’s a monster.” She watched him carefully for any sign of recognition. For a hint of the evil hiding behind his face.

Nothing.

Not even a flicker.

Regina was getting the very real sense that she was looking in the entirely wrong place for Hyde. She’d seen the ultrasound, that heart had been a normal size, was it really just paranoia?

Hyde’s heart was missing from her collection, stolen by Whale, but there was no guarantee that he’d used it at all…she needed to have a talk with the good doctor.

Soon.

She’d been avoiding it because the last time they’d met she’d very nearly killed him and –well- her feelings on the subject hadn’t much changed. She’d need a minder but she couldn’t think of anyone strong enough to stop her should her temper get the better of her…it looked like she’d be asking another favour of David.

Ugh.

“And you thought he’d be in my room? In my bed?”

“I…I didn’t think. The last time I saw glowing green eyes like that I got this scar.” Regina lifted her hand and tapped at her top lip. “Not even Snow managed to mark me with any permanence in all our battles. Hyde alone left me scarred.”

“Well, he’s not here now and he’s never going to hurt you again.” Daniel smoothed her hair back behind her ear. “Not while I’m around.”

Regina chuckled, but it was more at the irony than anything else.

She was going to have to know.

She was going to have to figure out a litmus test to find out if Hyde really was in there because –so long as his threat existed- she and Daniel were stuck in this horrible limbo where she couldn’t push him away and she couldn’t let him in.

Her hand rested on his chest without her consciously moving it and she rubbed at his scar absently, comforted by the strong feel of his heart –because it was his heart now- thumping steadily there. The sound and sensation went a long way to soothing her frazzled nerves.

“Now, not that I’m not happy to see you, but why are you breaking into my rooms?” Daniel smirked. “I mean, you could at least have appeared in my bed and given me a fighting chance.”

“I’m here on business.” Regina shoved at his chest, trying not to smile.

“A man can hope.” Daniel sighed and turned away from her, rummaging for clothes.

He found a pair of jeans and rustled up a white tee shirt. He noticed that Regina didn’t once look away. Enjoying the view apparently.

He was struck again by how different she was to the blushing girl he had known.

Back in the Enchanted forest he thought she had seen him without his shirt on. Once. She had been tongue tied and flushing furiously afterwards and he had been flattered but now…now he wouldn’t have to hold back with her.

Daniel had often felt oafish in her presence. Conscious that –even back then- he had been so much stronger than her and it would be so easy to hurt her. She had been so gentle, hurt so often just by her parents (for Henry Senior was as implicit in Cora’s abuse as the witch herself as far as Daniel was concerned –he could have done anything other than stand by and let it happen, but that was exactly what he had done). Daniel hadn’t wanted to be just another source of bruising to her.

Now, well, now she’d be able to take the pace.

Restrain him magically if she had to. He was, in fact, intrigued by the prospect.

“Daniel, keep looking at me like that and we’re never going to get anywhere.”

“Is that all it will take?” Daniel tilted his head and smirked and Regina sucked in a deep breath.

She pressed her lips together and then shook herself.

“Behave yourself. I need your help.”

Daniel straightened at that. Another test?

“Doing what?”

“Catching a killer.”

“Who’s dead?” Daniel stilled in the act of pulling on his boots.

“I don’t know yet but my murder sense is tingling.” Regina grinned at him, looking far too happy with this turn of events. “With any luck, we’ll catch the bastard before David does and I’ll get to try some of that police brutality I’ve heard so much about.”

“That doesn’t sound very…”

“Oh, come on!” Regina fished a set of jangling keys out of her pocket. “I haven’t killed anyone in _months_. Surely a little good old fashioned pummelling is allowed.”

Daniel heaved a sigh through his nose and knew he was being nettled.

Again.

His mouth twisted and he arched a brow at her.

She watched him for a long moment, the malicious glee slowly draining from her face. She nodded once. Test passed.

“This is how it’s going to be. It’s not going to be easy.” She wasn’t talking about catching killers anymore. “There are walls, my love, lots of walls.”

“Walls I will hurdle, climb, dig under and break through.” Daniel approached her slowly and looked her dead in the eye. “Lead on, I’ll follow you anywhere.”

“Truly?”

“Of course.” Daniel smirked. “The view is spectacular.”

Regina slowly grinned, reaching out to settle her hand over his heart again.

“You know…I’m beginning to believe you.”

Daniel grinned, showing off white teeth and Regina didn’t even flinch when she saw the green numbers of the alarm clock lighting his eyes again.

The alarm clock.

Right.

 

_**The Cannery...** _

 

“You drive like you ride.” Daniel hurled himself out of the car and onto the worn boards of the dock where the cannery stood.

They creaked under his boots but at least they didn’t move far too fast and swing wildly around corners like certain machines that certain deputised women drove.

“I particularly like the shotgun rack.” Regina slammed the driver door behind her and settled her hands on her hips, admiring the squad car. “Not that I’d need one, but there’s something to be said for pump action.”

Daniel just frowned at her. Not understanding the reference but knowing that her tone probably wasn’t appropriate for the search of a dead body.

A body that Regina had no reason to suspect was actually there other than her ‘murder sense’ was tingling. Whatever the seven hells that meant.

She had explained everything to him on the way. Being deputised, Charming dragging her into this whole mess, her worry for Ruby (she hadn’t used those words, but she was concerned for the werewolf) and her barely restrained glee at getting to use the ‘squad car’.

Daniel didn’t really see the attraction, it looked like a normal car to him, just with extra lights, but Regina so evidently enjoyed herself in it that he was almost willing to put up with the reckless way she commanded it.

“Well, as soon as you can tear yourself away…” Daniel prodded. If she was going to look at anything with such appreciation, he’d much rather it was him than a hunk of lifeless metal.

“Right!” Regina skirted the car, her long coat snapping around her.

Daniel would admit that the notion of women wearing breeches wasn’t entirely alien to him but Regina did fill hers out nicely. She was always dressed to impress. Who, he wasn’t certain, but he appreciated the view anyway.

“David said there was a car abandoned at the cannery. Presumably a concerned citizen called it in. We are supposed to find said car and ascertain the whereabouts of its owner.”

“Who you think is dead in a ditch somewhere?”

“Hopefully.” Regina nodded and the looked quickly at him when she realised how that had sounded. “I mean, if the body was disposed of into the ocean, we’ve little to no hope of finding it and –in turn- finding who killed them.”

“Why are you so certain the abandoned car means a dead body?” Daniel was only now beginning to get the sense of how dark Regina’s mind could be.

If this kind of thought came naturally to her…well, Cora had sunk her claws in deeper than he’d ever thought possible.

“The mess at Granny’s diner. It was a TERRIBLE frame job, mainly because you can’t see a good one. Whoever is doing this is leaving breadcrumbs the size of Buicks for us to find. Subtle is not in their repertoire.”

“Which would mean we will catch them quickly.”

“I knew you’d be a good sidekick.” Regina beamed at him and he smirked. Not entirely sure of the word but her tone had meant well. “The only problem arises with the culprit being so far ahead of us. He started last night, David and I just hiked into the forest to find Ruby. Without my magic…well, it wouldn’t be easy.”

“I’m sure the good Sheriff is grateful that you’re here to save the day.”

“As well he should be.” Regina pointed further along the boardwalk. “There it is.”

Regina’s pace quickened and Daniel easily kept up with her. His legs were a lot longer after all, he looked down at her with concern when she slowed. The excitement was gone and –in its place- concern.

“That’s Billy’s truck.”

“You knew him?”

“He’s a mechanic. He’s kept my car running smoothly for over two decades, I…I like Billy.” Her voice lowered to a growl. “Find him.”

Regina advanced on the abandoned truck and began to look around. Daniel followed her example, not really sure what to look for since he didn’t have a murder sense to fall back on.

He rounded the truck, dark eyes scanning and stilled when he looked up and saw a foot sticking out of a dumpster, one step closer was enough to see that the leg didn’t go any higher than the calf.

“I think I found Billy.” Daniel murmured.

“Me too.” Regina spoke from the other side of the truck and Daniel twisted to look over at her.

She looked…she looked angry.

Not the manic kind of anger that had taken her at Rachel’s house, nor the waspish irritability that she pulled on like an armour, but distilled righteous fury.

Billy was one of _hers_.

Someone had killed him on her turf and on her watch and he could see the gears in her head rotating around to M for Murder.

“Hack job.” She shook her head, her lip curled in disgust. “What kind of MORON would mistake axe wounds for wolf bites?!” Regina began to pace. “He’s not even made an attempt to make it look like she ate him. Just tore him apart. Wolves don’t DO that! PEOPLE do that! _I_ do that!”

“Regina,” Daniel cautiously approached her, “you need to think. You’re not going to solve anything by getting blinded by anger.”

Regina stormed back and forth, her hands twisted into claws at her sides. She seemed unaware of the magic snapping and crackling from her fingertips. She kept shaking her head, like trying to rattle water from her ears or jostle a siren song from her eardrums.

Daniel kept trying.

“If you’re part of the law now, you’re going to need evidence. You’re wearing that uniform and that crest for a reason. You don’t just represent yourself anymore.” Daniel scrambled to get through to her. If he couldn’t, the only other person might be Henry and Daniel didn’t want him to be anywhere near this kind of thing. “Didn’t you raise Henry to respect the law?”

Regina’s eyes flickered to him and her hands began to unclench. She kept pacing but had settled into a simmering fume.

She muscled her temper down, it took several moments, but she got in under control. She huffed out a slow breath and looked sideways at him.

“When did you get so smart?”

“Born this way.” Daniel smirked and stepped closer to her. Not touching her, because that seemed disrespectful amongst the splatter of Billy’s remains, but offering to shield her from the wind with his body.

“People aren’t born. They’re made.” Regina disagreed but there was no heat to it. She turned and looked at the desolate cannery.

She shivered violently suddenly.

“You alright?”

“Yes, fine, I just…I felt like I shouldn’t be here…like I shouldn’t come back.” Regina stared hard at the cannery and pressed her lips together. Her eyes gleamed with a spark of magic and Daniel waited.

After a moment, she shook her head.

“Not magical, not deliberate but…huh.” Regina chuckled.

“What?”

“The magic, Storybrooke’s magic, is warning me off. It doesn’t want me to go into the cannery.” She tilted her head. “I must have endeared myself to it more than I had thought.”

“You want to go in. Don’t you?” Daniel drawled.

“Would I be a good investigator if I didn’t?”

“You might be a healthier one.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“In bed. We can go back and get it if you want.” Daniel brightened at his suggestion and she shook her head, but she was smiling.

“Hardly the kind of talk for a murder scene, dear.” Regina started towards the cannery, pulling her cell phone from her pocket and punching in a number from memory. “Come on, let’s be nosy.”

She clapped the phone to her ear and listened to the trilling on the other end.

“ _Sheriff_.” David answered on the other end.

“David. I was right. Get to the cannery. It was Billy, Gus, the mechanic mouse.” Regina jerked the phone away from her ear suddenly when there was a high pitched and panicked sound from the other end. She frowned and tried to decipher what was going on. “David? David, what’s going on?”

Regina stopped on her path towards the cannery and listened more intently.

“David?!”

“ _Shit!”_ There was more scuffling, as of someone picking up a phone that he had dropped. _“Regina, Ruby heard, she’s coming to you._ ”

“David!” Regina cursed. “You had ONE job!”

“ _Wolf ears_!” David defended himself and huffed out an irritated breath. “ _I’ll be there as soon as I can_.”

“And I’ll be waiting, fearless leader.” Regina sighed and ended the call with a vicious stab of her finger against the screen. “Idiot.”

“Ruby’s on her way?” Regina turned to see Daniel standing watching the approach to the docks from the road. He was frowning.

“Ye-es…”

“I don’t have a wolf’s ears, but it would seem that being dead has improved them greatly.” Daniel answered her silent question as to how he had heard. “She’s going to be upset.”

“She’s going to be here quickly, too. Werewolves are fast.”

“So am I.” Daniel lunged and Regina was glad because she had barely registered Ruby’s approach before she was there.

Daniel grunted under the impact of a werewolf travelling at speed and wrapped his arms around her. He was shunted backwards, his boots dragging over the boards of the dock, and he bore down, thudding Ruby into the dock again and holding her there.

“Let me by!” Ruby caterwauled, shrieking in her panic. “Let me see!”

“Ruby, you don’t need to see.” Daniel struggled against her and Regina was on the verge of summoning magic before he wrestled the wolf back. “He wouldn’t want to be seen this way.”

“How do you know?!” Ruby allowed herself to be pushed back, screaming at Daniel’s face. “You didn’t know him at all! I did! I did this to him!”

Tears began to stream down Ruby’s face and her voice caught in a sob.

“I did this! Again! It was me!” Ruby was properly sobbing now, turning back and forth, not knowing which way to go.

She kept doing it, twisting this way and that and –when Regina appeared in her path- she did exactly what Regina knew she would.

“You have to stop me!” Ruby gripped Regina by the lapels of her shirt and shook her. “Chain me up, lock me away somewhere, put me down. Please!”

“You’d have me do that?” Regina stood impassively whilst Ruby shook her. “As far as I’ve come, as hard as I’ve tried to be better, to do good, you’d have me kill my own sister?”

“What?” Ruby blinked and snatched her hands away. “Shut up.”

“Listen to your wolf, Ruby.” Regina continued blandly. “Granny did it. You can feel it.”

“That’s not…WHY?!” Ruby was beginning to swing back around to anger.

“Does it matter?”

“Hell yes it matters!” Ruby very nearly shrieked and Regina remained unmoved. She knew Ruby was innocent and a werewolf’s temper was hardly a threat to her. “You just told me I’m related to you!”

“By magic.”

“Not by choice!”

“Nobody chooses who their family is.” Regina gently reached for Ruby, gathering her closer. “I am your sister. Your older sister.”

“No, no, no…” Ruby shook her head, tears still falling but collapsing slowly into Regina’s hold.

“Listen to the wolf, Ruby, you know it. I’m your big sister,” Regina sank down with Ruby until they knelt on the dock, she gathered her close and stroked her hair, “and I’m not going to let anything happen to you…or you happen to anyone else.”

Ruby broke down completely and did exactly what she needed to do. Which was cry.

Regina rocked her back and forth and shushed her and Daniel stood off to the side, giving them some measure of privacy.

It wasn’t until David’s truck pulled up that Ruby lifted her head, heeling her hand over her cheeks and dashing the tears away.

“You’ll help me tell David?”

“Of course.” Regina stood with Ruby, steadying her.

The younger woman looked like ten miles of bad road. Some people could cry, sob their hearts out, and look alright afterward. Regina was one of them –years of practice- but Ruby wasn’t. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, blotches of red scored high over her pale cheeks, she looked like a wreck. Regina decided not to tell her any of that.

“What’s wrong?” David slammed his truck door closed and approached them, his pace quickening when he saw how bad Ruby looked.

“I’m taking Ruby into custody.” Regina clanked a pair of cuffs around Ruby’s wrists and Ruby meekly let her do it.

“What?!” David’s eyes went wide and he looked over at Daniel for help. Daniel looked just as mystified as he did. David rounded on Regina. “She didn’t do this!”

“That’s likely.” Regina nodded and marched Ruby over to the squad car, ducking her inside. “I’m not taking the chance though. I’m going to put her somewhere where we can be sure she won’t escape and she can’t hurt anybody.”

Regina shut the door and tapped her fingers on the roof of the car. A shimmer of magic rolled around the body of the thing.

“Continue to look outraged and yell a little.” Regina told David.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” David growled at her.

“Very convincing, Charming.” Regina smirked.

“This isn’t a game, Regina! I didn’t deputise you so you could throw innocent people in the cells!”

“Look at her, David.” Regina frowned at him. “She is in NO shape to defend herself. Not only that but she doesn’t believe she’s innocent. I can’t help her if she doesn’t even believe in herself. Trying to convince her of it now is a waste of time better spent elsewhere.”

“So…you don’t think she did it?”

“Of course not!” Regina snorted and looked skyward. “The evidence suggest a very man shaped killer and I would very much like his head on a plate. I can’t do that when I have to worry about his intended target as well.”

“You think this guy is after Ruby? Why?” David was beginning to calm down and to realise that having an experienced murderer on his side had its advantages.

A quick glance at torn body parts and they looked no different to the rendings of a wolf to him. Regina obviously had a more discerning eye.

“Yes and I don’t know why yet but she was the target at the diner and she’s been framed for this.” Regina looked none too pleased about that.

“Everyone likes Ruby.” David protested.

“As far as you know.” Regina sighed. “David, you’re not exactly the kind of person someone shares their grudge with. You’re too…nice.”

“So what are we going to do?” David folded his arms over his chest, challenging her.

Regina blinked, thrown by the ‘we’ again. It was going to take a long time to get used to the ‘we’.

“Well I’m going to put Ruby somewhere that no one will look for her and then I’m going to go out and get the killer. What do you want to do?” Regina stood hesitantly, watching him. “You could…help me? I mean, if that’s what you want me to do. Boss.”

David laughed at her.

She looked so uncertain. Caught so wrong footed at the prospect of taking orders from anyone. She was trying though. Genuinely trying.

Maybe even yesterday she’d have just gone off on her own and whoever she believed responsible for hassling Ruby would have been quietly disappeared.

David was still firm in the opinion that he was going to have to talk her down from mounting the offending party’s head on a pike –she couldn’t just go cold turkey- but she was at least going to give him the chance to do it.

He smiled.

“You’re adorable.”

“You take that back!” Regina scowled at him.

“No. You are.” He nodded. “I can secure and process the scene and then inform Granny as to what’s going on. She’s not going to like it.”

“You might need to take steps.” Regina nodded. “Granny going maternal could very well be used against Ruby as well.”

“Where are you going to take her?” David nodded to Ruby sitting desolately inside the car.

“I’m not sure yet. I don’t want to leave her on her own but I can’t stay with her either.” Regina looked in on Ruby too and then focussed on a reflection in the window. She straightened. “Daniel?”

“Yes.” Daniel had been watching the entire conversation with the interest of someone who understood the bare minimum of what was going on.

“How much does Eleanor hate me?”

“About middling.” Daniel shrugged a shoulder. “She tolerates you because of Merida and Rachel and out of respect for me since you’re my wife.”

“Is there something you kids want to tell me?” David looked between them.

“We’re not married.” Regina sighed.

“Yet.” Daniel smirked.

“Oh..kay…” David looked between them again and Regina forged on.

“I’m wondering, if I asked, would she hide Ruby?”

“Ruby will never agree to sit under a house with children in it if she thinks she’s out of control.”

“She will if I make her a magic collar that will stop her from transforming.” Regina shrugged a shoulder.

“You can do that?” David looked wildly at her.

“No…but Ruby doesn’t know that.” Regina looked at Daniel. “Will you help my sister?” She seemed entirely unaware in the change of the way she referred to Ruby and neither man volunteered to point it out.

Regina in full on Familial Mode was a beast better pointed at the enemy.

“I can talk to Eleanor about it. She knows a little something about being on the wrong end of a transformation. I think she’ll help.”

“So it’s settled, I’ll take Ruby to the Ugly Duckling, you’ll talk to Granny –convince her this is staying in the family- and then meet you back here?”

“I’ll call in the morgue. Send someone to help me…gather up Billy.” David’s smile finally slipped from his face when he was forced to acknowledge how horrible the situation was. He started when Regina’s hesitant fingers touched his hand. He looked down at her to see an unsure smile on her face.

“I’ll be back soon,” she smirked, “boss.”

“Thanks, Regina, you’ve really helped.”

“Don’t embarrass me.” She waved him away but she was smiling in her eyes. “Don’t break anything between now and my return.”

“I’ll try.” David was already dialling on his cell and Regina tapped the roof of the squad car, dropping the muffling spell that had prevented Ruby from hearing their plans.

Daniel heaved in a fortifying breath before slinging himself into the car, he hated the damn thing.

 

**_The Ugly Duckling…_ **

 

“How is she?” Regina asked as Daniel came up from the beer cellar beneath the bar.

“She’s upset but the chains seem to comfort her.” Daniel looked slightly puzzled by it all and Regina explained as best she could.

“Being a killer isn’t fun, Daniel. It’s a special kind of terror that comes from not wanting to do it and finding yourself doing it anyway.” Regina shrugged and looked back to the spell she was working on when his gaze became too penetrating. “We’ve given her peace of mind, once she’s calmed she’ll believe that it was someone else as much as we do.”

It had hurt Regina more than she’d like to admit to see Ruby brought so low. She hadn’t expected the bond of family that Granny had shackled her with to spring so actively to life but there it was. She now openly referred to Ruby as her sister and it seemed entirely natural.

What was more, Ruby seemed comforted by it as well. She had become nigh on hysterical at the thought of being under a building filled with so many ‘innocent’ people in it. Kibble in waiting as far as the wolf was concerned. Regina had been the only one able to calm her down and convince her that she could be led into the beer cellar.

“Howzit gan?”

Regina’s head snapped up when a familiar brogue announced suddenly far too close to her.

“Afternoon, Danny.” Merida beamed up at Daniel. She turned to Regina next and her smile was a little wary. “Miss Mills.”

“Good afternoon, Merida.” Regina spoke cordially.

She wasn’t going to admit it to anyone, least of all Merida, but she was beginning to warm up to the girl.

“Whatchya doin’?”

Regina blinked languidly at such a gross insult to enunciation that was the princess’ syntax but mustered an answer anyway.

“I’m putting a spell on this collar.”

“Why?”

“To stop Ruby from transforming.” Regina had decided that headology would play a great part in her spell and that everyone –aside from herself and Daniel- would believe the collar to do exactly what Ruby thought it would.

The last thing she needed was a wolf’s ears picking up from someone in the know that it was complete nonsense.

“Ye can do that?” Merida’s eyes widened. “I didnae think anybody could dae that.”

“Well, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” Regina was rapidly depleting her stores of patience and she still had David to deal with after this too.

“Is it hard?”

“Extremely.” Regina wasn’t entirely lying.

Enchantment was simple. Enough will and power and you could imbue objects with simple commands and restrictions that could be passed onto anything –say a person- that said object came into contact with. Simple enough. It was actually a lot harder what Regina was trying to do.

She was trying to imbue the collar with enough power so as to be obviously magical to a comparative civilian like Ruby but not so much that it might destabilise and –say- explode her head off. So she was trying to get it to glow and sparkle a little bit but not let the heat build up and set fire to Ruby’s hair.

“I’ll be quiet then.”

“That, I would pay money for.” Regina murmured and decided to try the metal studs on the collar rather than the leather. Ruby only needed to wear it through the night after all.

“Why doesn’t she jist put on her cloak?” Merida’s vow of silence was forgotten in the face of curiosity.

“How do you know about the cloak?” Regina lifted her head to eye Merida.

“Um…Henry was dain’ a bit of readin’ so I…asked him to read it tae me.” Merida began to fidget under Regina’s steady and unwavering stare. She felt colour begin to creep up into her neck and into her cheeks and the queen continued to watch her, studying her.

“Interesting.” Regina finally decided. Which terrified Merida a little bit.

The last thing she wanted was for Henry’s mum to take a notice of her.

“Stop it.” Daniel leaned down and murmured into Regina’s ear and she ducked her head back to the collar to hide her smirk.

So she hadn’t entirely forgiven Merida for being a brat. She was allowed to be a little terrorising. She was supposed to be the Evil Queen after all.

Who were parents going to scare their children into behaving with if not with tales of her coming for them in the dark of night to drag them under their beds never to be seen again? She owed it at the community at large to continue to be just evil enough to be a credible threat.

“So,” Merida’s curiosity was not so easily dissuaded, “whit happened to the cloak?”

“I don’t know.” Regina admitted but the wheels in her head began to tumble, “Ruby said she couldn’t find it. Not even in Gold’s shop.”

“Could ye no’ find it? With yer spells?”

“I’d need a part of it to find it or…” Regina quieted herself when something occurred to her. “I’ll be right back.”

She spun away suddenly and clattered down the steps into the dimly lit basement. It had actually been made very comfortable for Ruby.

Eleanor had become almost as protective of Ruby as Regina had. She’d had Daniel and Eugene drag a bed and blankets down from the rooms above for Ruby to sit on and stay warm. A small wood burning stove added a heat to the dry but cool room and a television had been brought down to keep her occupied.

It didn’t do much to detract from the chains of solid rock that Regina had pulled from the stone walls of the basement like taffy. Each link was easily the size of her head, the loops of stone making them up about as thick as her forearm.

An ogre would have trouble breaking free of them and Regina had deliberately left them heavy so as to convince Ruby of their security. She had padded the manacles around each wrist so that they didn’t chafe but that was as far as Ruby had been willing to let her go so as not to impede the chains’ function.

“Hey,” Regina was surprised again at how soft her voice was when she approached Ruby and knelt on the bed beside her, “it’s done.”

Ruby lifted her head, her eyes sunken and sad and Regina’s heart grew heavier at the sight.

“Don’t give up,” she found herself saying, “I still believe this wasn’t you. All of this is just to make you feel better.”

“Regina, the only way I’ll know it wasn’t me is if someone else turns up dead tonight, and I don’t want that.”

“Nobody does, dear.” Regina carefully swept Ruby’s hair back. “You didn’t do this. Try and believe that. Someone let you out of the walk-in. So –at the very least- there’s someone out there who’s partially responsible.”

“What if I ate them too?”

“Nonsense.” Regina dismissed it and buckled the collar around Ruby’s neck. “There was no evidence of that. I saw what you did to my Blackguard’s back in the Forest. Clean, is not a word I would associate with what you did to your enemies.”

Regina pulled her hands away and winced when Ruby yelped.

“Sorry,” Regina said quickly, contrite, “your hair got caught on my button. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” The chains grated when Ruby hefted a hand to the sting on her scalp. She touched the collar next and heaved a relieved sigh. “Thank you for this.”

“Precautions only.” Regina held up a finger. “Keeping you in one piece and place until I can catch the real culprit.”

“Okay.” Ruby tried to rally for Regina but it was half hearted at best. Regina stood and didn’t know what else to say. She much preferred to do.

“Daniel will keep watch and food will be brought down soon.”

“Okay.” Ruby was back to staring at her toes and Regina felt the mad urge to start howling and clawing at things.

She beat back the sibling connection and tried to keep her head as clear of it as possible. Daniel was right. She wasn’t a free agent anymore. She had a badge and a uniform now.

Regina spun on her heel and hurried back up to the bar. She kicked the trapdoor shut behind her and found Daniel waiting for her. Merida was across the bar, her mother looming over her and giving her a stern talking too. No doubt for her infraction of mixing with the evil riff raff.

“Any change?”

“Still pining for the hangman.” Regina’s voice was tight. “I need you to stay and look after her.”

“What about you?” Daniel frowned.

“I’m going to meet David. I’ll be in the car between times.” Regina smiled to try and comfort him. People worrying for her was throwing her for a loop. “Daniel, you’re the only one strong enough to stop her should she wolf out and become violent.”

“I thought you thought she was innocent?”

“She is,” Regina nodded, “but wolves are not known for their fondness of confinement. The chains are enchanted to shift when she does but her wolf is going to be annoyed when it finds itself a prisoner.”

“Sit on the trapdoor?”

“With Lord Fergus if at all possible.” Regina smiled and it faltered a little when his hand was suddenly cupping her face.

“You’ll be careful.” It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway. “Call if you need me.”

“Sure.” Regina’s voice was a little breathier than it should have been.

“I mean it. I’ll turn that chain into a leash and walk the rabid wolf there like a coursing dog myself if I have to.”

“I believe you.” Regina nodded.

“Alright.”

“Alright.” Regina drew away from him and scooped up her coat, shrugging it on. “I’ll see you later then.”

“One more thing.” Daniel’s fingers caught down the front of her shirt and yanked her bodily against him.

Regina yelped but the sound was cut off by Daniel’s mouth crushing against her own and her protests fumbled into nothing.

She melted into him just as quickly as he demanded it of her. It was positively chaste compared to their other kisses, Daniel pulled away from her after only a few searing seconds, but it was more than enough to fry all the connections in Regina’s brain and force her to do a full system’s reboot.

“Anything else?” She managed after a stunned moment, not unaware of how hopeful her voice sounded.

“Yes, don’t get hurt. I’m trusting you here. Don’t get mad and stupid and get hurt.”

“I reserve the right to get mad.” Regina took a moment to wipe away the lipstick she had left on his mouth and resisted the urge to use her tongue for the job. “I shall endeavour not to be the one that gets hurt though.”

“Good. Now get out of here before I lay you out on the bar like a free meal.” Daniel let out a harsh breath to show he wasn’t entirely immune to the heat boiling between them.

He was trying, he was desperately trying to give her the time she needed but he was still a flesh and blood man and he’d been waiting longer than anyone should have to already. He wanted to have noble intentions but he always seemed to just have intent when it came to her.

Still, it pleased him when he propelled her towards the door that she wasn’t entirely steady on her feet. It pleased him even more when she turned at the doorway of the bar to look back at him.

He was looking forward to the opportunity to make her smile like that again.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19 – Hairy Situation**

 

“You’re sure this is working?”

“For the tenth time; yes.” Regina huffed a sigh and resisted the urge to slap her companion on the back of his skull in an effort to get him to shut the hell up.

“It’s just…we’ve been down this alley before.” David sounded mulish.

“Tell you what; _you_ work the incredibly complex spell and plug it into your central nervous system and _I’ll_ walk around with my genitalia extension of a weapon out, asking stupid questions.” Regina stopped and turned to frown at him unerringly despite not being able to see him.

At least, not in the conventional sense. Her eyes were closed to prevent sensory overload due to the tracking spell she had worked on the hair she had snagged from Ruby.

The spell was simplicity itself, using the hair, she could focus on any other dead parts that Ruby had left lying around of herself. Namely other hairs. She’d logged a lot of hours in that cloak, chances were –barring dry cleaning- that the material still held a strand or three. It would have been better to enchant a gem with it but she hadn’t had one on hand and time was kind of the essence right at the moment. So she’d had to settle for hitching the spell to the ones already lain into her bones. Just a little swatch of uncarved ivory on her skull. Behind her left ear.

The result being a faint buzzing as the little bones in her ear vibrated in resonance with proximity to traces of Ruby. Which was fine had it not also been tuned into her optic nerve for some reason. Something to do with eighty per cent of sensory input to the brain being visual she supposed. Two minutes of looking at the magical miasma that was Storybrooke had been a migraine that could fell an elephant in the making.

So her eyes were closed.

She supposed it was fortunate that she could tell where she was in Storybrooke just by the texture of the street beneath her feet.

“You’re sure you don’t want to…I dunno, hold my hand or something?” David asked. Again.

“I’d rather break my nose on a wall.” Regina told him flatly.

“But…”

“David, have you seen me even look like I was going to walk into something?” Regina tilted her head this way and that, listening for that oh-so faint buzzing that she’d been trying to zero in on for the past hour or so. She was getting frustrated. They were running out of time.

The sun was setting. They had been wandering the town for the better part of the afternoon looking for the faintest traces of Ruby’s hair. Ticking off the most obvious places fairly quickly. Now they were down to the last thing Regina could hear, she couldn’t hear below this register, not without switching forms and she had no real desire to find out what might happen to her spells should she switch the shape of the bones upon which they were etched.

“No, actually. That’s kind of freaky.”

“You forget that I’m the only one that actually remembers every moment of wandering this town’s streets. There are advantages to having a brain that never shuts down.” Regina shrugged a shoulder. “Sometimes.”

Regina listened a moment more.

“This way.” She turned off into a smaller alleyway, walked through it and out onto Store Street. She cursed when she walked smack into the car parked there. “Oof!”

“Told you holding my hand would be better.”

“Shut up.” Regina rubbed at her shin.

That was the second time that day she had walloped it. With a shake of her head, she snapped the spell and scoured it from the bone upon which it had been drawn. She winced when she opened her eyes and found herself facing into the setting sun.

“Who’s car is this?” David was already examining the dark saloon, peering in through the windows.

“George’s.” Regina circled the car warily, stretching out her senses, checking for traps. “He was something of a feature in the town hall, being a lawyer and all. What reason has he to threaten Ruby?”

“He doesn’t.” David straightened and rubbed at his eyes. “He threatened me though. Told me he was going to make my life miserable.”

“David!” Regina threw her hands up.

“What?!” David yelled back. “I’m not Ruby. I had no idea the two were connected.”

“You and Ruby are connected, that should be enough. Did it honestly not occur to you that he would use your favourite people against you? He knows that would hurt you more than anything he could weigh upon you. Everybody knows that!”

“I’m not that paranoid!”

“You should be. What if he’d gone after Henry?!” Regina sucked in a sharp breath when that fully occurred to her. Her jaw clenched and she snarled the last. “I’ll kill him.”

“No.” David levelled a warning finger at her. “We do this right.”

“He has attacked you and yours, David. You don’t let that slide.”

“What would you have me do? Just kill him in cold blood?”

“He struck first!” Regina’s voice was changing, becoming colder, crueller.

“Stop it! You’re not her anymore!” David rounded the car and got in her face. “Not only her.”

Regina’s chest heaved with every breath and she silenced the war drums in her head but it was slow in coming.

“You can’t kill him. Not outright, not without proof. Not whilst you wear that uniform and that badge.” David tried again, sensing how close to the edge she was skating. “We’ll stop him, but we have to do it my way.”

“Fine. I won’t kill him.” Regina agreed after a long moment and owed him enough to clarify. “Though you may wish you hadn’t asked it of me.”

“I doubt it.” David’s voice was hard and Regina tilted her head, her eyes narrowed.

“Are you using me?”

David looked sideways at her.

“Let’s have a look inside.” He decided after a moment, reaching to try the driver’s side door of the car.

Regina’s hand manacling his wrist stopped him cold.

“David, tell me.” She pushed again when he refused to look at her. “I think, if we’re to be friends, I should know why you hate each other so much.”

“George hates me for what I did to his kingdom. When I turned down the proposal to Midas’ daughter, when I reunited her with her love, the kingdom never recovered.”

“And…?” Regina knew there was more.

She wasn’t sure what but Charming wasn’t the type to get personal over such a thing, hell, he probably felt guilty about the raise in taxes his actions would have wrought in George’s kingdom. For George hadn’t been ruined. You can’t raise an army with nothing to feed or pay them with.

“He poisoned Snow.”

Ah, that was why he hadn’t wanted to tell her. Did he really think she was looking for hints and tips after all this time? After the power boost she’d gotten? She could break Snow down to her composite parts upon her return with nothing more than a strand of her hair and a will…not that she’d thought about it. Much.

“He wanted to make her barren, so I’d suffer his pain or something like that.”

Regina stiffened, her jaw clenching.

“I see.”

“My mother sacrificed herself in order to let Snow have the cure.” David stared at his reflection in the window of George’s car. “I owe George a debt of pain that I cannot really fully comprehend. He wanted to steal my children from me, to break my wife’s heart and he killed my mother…I’m sure you get it.”

“I have a faint idea.” Regina didn’t know what to do.

David gave a humourless chuckle.

“Well, enough of this, time’s a wasting.” David tried the handle to the door and Regina felt relief at not having to do something drastic like pet his arm or something.

In some ways, she’d preferred it when her feelings towards Charming had only been expressed through violence.

“Here, let me.” Regina reached past him and David stepped back, expecting the crackle of magic.

Regina surprised him by pulling a stiletto blade from within her sleeve and finessing the lock open. She looked up and found David staring at her.

“What?”

“You can jimmy locks?”

“I can _pick_ locks. Jimmying is different.” Regina corrected him, crouching to work at the lock until it clicked. “I’ve been without magic for nearly thirty years, I had to adapt. They’ve got books of everything in this world.” She smiled when she stood and swung the door open, waving David to precede her into looking inside.

“Criminal.” David shook his head but he was smirking.

He ducked into the car and leaned over, flicking the lock for the passenger’s side. Regina wasted no time in skirting the car and finding her way inside. She sat on the passenger’s seat and began to rummage through the glove compartment. She found papers, many papers. She flipped through them, her brows raising.

“What you got?”

“License and registration for the car, a receipt from Gold’s shop –doesn’t say what for just what he paid for- a couple of parking tickets and…a gun licence.”

“A gun?”

“Magnum .357.” Regina’s brows rose. “I take it back, his penis extension is bigger.”

David snorted but and reached under the driving wheel, flipping the lock for the trunk. Hoisting himself out of the car, he hauled it open and frowned at the empty interior. A length of rope, a blanket, hell, he had the same things in his truck. Nothing unusual. Unless…

David worked the catch for the spare tyre compartment and opened that too.

“Regina.”

“Yes?” Regina stepped out of the car, shoving something into her pocket, and joined him at the trunk. She looked down at the contents spread over the spare tyre and her brows rose. “Well, I think we have enough proof for Ruby now.”

“He framed her and killed Billy. Bastard.” David gathered up the cloak. “He took this so she’d be forced to stay as the wolf. How long has he been planning this?”

“Judging by the way he left all the evidence in his car, not long.” Regina picked up the hatchet between gloved thumb and forefinger. “This is one villain I wouldn’t mind not getting a second chance.”

“You and me both.” David weighed the cloak in his hands and eyed the axe. It occurred to him that he couldn’t be in two places at once. “You take that to evidence, I’ll go to Ruby with the cloak.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll meet you at the station and we’ll go after George.” David’s eyes fell on the blood stained axe. “I’ve got a few questions to ask him.”

“Want a lift?” Regina lifted her hand, magic sparking from her fingertips and David hesitated. “Sun’s setting, Charming.”

“Alright.” David suppressed his wince when her hand landed on his chest and purple smoke engulfed him. This always made him feel sick to his stomach.

When he opened his eyes again, he stood outside the Ugly Duckling.

Regina teleported herself back to the station and blinked when she appeared in the midst of a crowd. People yelped and fell back from her, a few of them raising their guns.

Guns?

“What’s going on?”

Regina turned to find George standing on the steps of the station, mouth open, apparently in the midst of a rousing speech.

“Regina.” He looked her up and down. “Wearing Charming’s colours too now, I see.”

“I wear the colours of the Sheriff’s department.”

An angry murmur raced through the crowd and Regina ignored it.

She got over her surprise in a hurry. Of course he had a mob. The best weapon against David would be the very people he had sworn to protect. He’d never cut into people he saw as innocent civilians.

Regina knew there was no such thing. Not when they marched against her and hers.

“I take it that everyone here has a licence for the weapons and…seriously? Pitchforks?”

“Citizens are allowed to defend themselves.” George looked thrown by her sudden appearance, it wasn’t like she had planned it herself, but rallied quickly. He slipped automatically into smarmy lawyer mode.

“Against what?” Regina asked feigning confusion. “I haven’t done anything heinous in weeks. Even Gold has been behaving himself. We live in a quiet town.”

“The wolf is loose. It’s killed a man.”

“Which man?” Regina continued to feign ignorance.

“Bill, the mechanic.”

“He preferred Billy.” Regina bit out. “He wasn’t killed by a wolf. He was chopped up into pieces. With an axe.”

“Speaking from personal experience?” George’s eyes hardened and Regina felt the shift of the crowd.

She was keenly aware she was standing in the middle of them. They had guns. She had never tested her shields against such powerful weapons. She had no desire to do so now. Still…there were other options available to her.

“You know,” she kept her conversational tone, glancing about her at the crowd, making note of who would fight and who would run, “I have to confess, I’m a little insulted. The mob sent for MY head was a mere score of you yobs, there has to be twice that here.”

“We’re not after you.” George descended the steps, advancing on her. “Yet.”

“You say the wolf has killed one person? I killed hundreds. Little bit disproportionate, don’t you think?”

“She’s a ravening beast!” George was getting angry. Good. That was how she needed him.

“A beast that I can take care of.” Regina’s voice was cool, deliberately an antithesis to his. “Disperse. You are not needed for this.”

“Or what?”

“Really?” Regina arched a brow. “You want to play the escalation game with me? I who cursed this entire town? Go now and nobody gets turned inside out.”

“And trust you?!” George laughed at her. “You must be joking!”

“I don’t have a sense of humour as far as I’m aware.” Regina shrugged a shoulder. “You don’t have to trust me, you just have to do as you’re told. It’s in your best interests, George. If they all leave now, none of them have to know.”

Regina felt the change in the crowd. George frowned at her.

“Know what?”

“You didn’t think I hadn’t figured it out, did you?” She smiled.

She measured dark around her. The sun had set, the moon was on the rise. Charming would have Ruby in the cloak by now…the only thing she had to stall for now was dramatic effect.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” George snorted dismissively, turning away from her.

“A piece of it doesn’t work, you know!” Regina called after him, succeeding in turning him back. “That red tie of yours, cut from the wolf’s cloak, the one that controls her changing. You need the whole cloak, George. Not just a piece of it for a collar.”

“What are you talking about?!” George snarled at her, not noticing the way his eyes began to glow.

“Come now, George, you’d better control yourself. You wouldn’t want your wolf to eat any of these nice people here.” Regina waved to the crowd that had been steadily backing away from her and George. They didn’t like the way this conversation was going at all.

“What wolf?!” George heard the snarl Regina put into his voice and clapped a hand over his mouth.

“That one, dear.” Regina smirked. “I told you, you need the whole cloak to leash it. You’d best get into the cells. We wouldn’t want you hurting anyone.”

“What have you done to me?!” George roared. “This is your doing!”

“Me?!” Regina pressed a hand to her chest, keeping half an eye on the advancing silvery moonlight creeping along the street. “I’m not a werewolf, George. I can’t give it to you anymore than I could turn you into a djinn. I don’t know how you got it but it had nothing to do with me.”

“Stop it!” George struggled with the words, his teeth becoming too many and too large for his mouth. “Stop this now!”

“Stop what?” Regina tilted her head.

“Stop it right now!” George pulled his gun, that giant hand cannon of his and levelled it at Regina. Who did nothing more than lift her chin and look down her nose at him.

“Shooting me won’t stop this, George.”

“This is a spell, a trick!” George was slavering now, beginning to look rabid. “Killing you will stop it.”

“You really think so?” Regina smirked and that seemed to be all he needed to shove him over the edge. “Do you see the moon, George? She sees you.”

“I am not a werewolf!”

“Your new beard says otherwise.” Regina drawled and George’s hand went to his face.

“You’re doing this.”

“How could I? You can’t use magic to turn someone into a werewolf. You have to be born or bitten that way. I’m guessing bitten with you.” Regina appeared to remain perfectly calm despite the growing agitation in the crowd and the gun in George’s hand.

“Lies!”

“It makes perfect sense to me. Only a werewolf could hate another werewolf as much as you hate Ruby. I mean, that canon of a gun, the mob, framing her with someone’s death? That speaks of a vendetta that I would be proud of. What’s the matter, George, jealous that she’s got control you never had?”

“You’ll die for this, you bitch!”

“If anyone’s going to suffer from canine insults here, it should really be you.” Regina shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not the one turning into a different shape after all. Just you. In front of your very own mob no less.”

“Not once you’re dead.” With a snarl, George levelled his gun.

Regina’s eyes flew wide, she hadn’t actually thought he’d do it.

Her hand snapped up and the sound of the gun going off was a roar of sound in the night.

Blood splattered and Regina spun with the impact of the bullet. Her body went limp and she crumpled to the ground.

George stood, looking haggard and wild, eyes still glowing, teeth still lengthening, and stared down at her body.

His head snapped up, the growth of hair on his head and jaw shining silver in the moonlight, when a blood curdling howl rose into the night.

 

_**The Ugly Duckling...** _

 

David shook off the purple smoke from the teleportation and blinked away the magic. His stomach roiled but he muscled that down too. Hurrying into the pub, he nodded to the bouncers, and scanned the interior of the pub for the familiar figure of Daniel.

“Daniel!” He spotted the other man uncharacteristically behind the bar and invited himself straight behind it, sidling past Eugene. “I got it, I got the cloak.”

“Great.” Daniel brightened. “Ruby will be glad.”

“She’s still down there?”

Daniel nodded and threw back the trapdoor leading down into the beer cellar. He preceded David down into the gloomy light below and David hurried after him, ignoring the looks they garnered on their way. He clattered down the stairs and stilled when he saw Ruby.

Ruby sat on the bed, her hands buried in her hair, massive stone chains dangling from her wrists. Her knees were up against her chest and she rocked back and forth to herself, murmuring constantly under her breath.

“Don’t change. You are the wolf the wolf is you. Don’t change. You are the wolf the wolf is you. Don’t change…”

“Ruby,” David cautiously approached, “I have your cloak.”

David fell back a step when Ruby was suddenly right in his face, her arms stretched back behind her, the chains creaking against their moorings in the wall.

“Where’s Regina?” Ruby’s eyes were wild, her skin too pale. Her teeth seemed to be too large for her mouth. “She’s scared. I can feel it.”

“Ruby, no, she’s gone to the station. We found evidence, evidence that it was George that killed Billy and not you. You’re innocent, Ruby.”

“Not a day in my life.” Ruby’s voice was quiet and her eyes focussed on something no one else could see. Her head tilted. “Her heart’s pounding. I can hear it.”

“Regina’s fine, Ruby. I promise you.” David tried to edge closer, put the cloak about her shoulders. Give them all a little piece of mind.

He might have succeeded had both Ruby and Daniel jerked.

“What was that?” Daniel spun on his heel, looking up to the open trapdoor over their heads.

“Now she’s bleeding!” Ruby lunged, the chains torn from the wall as if they’d been held there with putty rather than grafted to the foundations of the building.

A roar exploded from the woman as she morphed, her form becoming fluid and amorphous. She shimmered, one moment a woman, the next a gigantic wolf and the remnants of the chains left in her wake. She had shifted clean out of them.

She was a snarling shadow, soaring over David’s head, bounding past Daniel and bursting up behind the bar of the Ugly Duckling. There were screams and shouts, Daniel being the only one fast enough on her tail, but he needn’t have worried.

Ruby hurdled the bar and bounded into the throng in the busy pub. They scattered like a flock of pigeons upset by a cat and she bounded again, already clean across the bar. The door was sent spinning from its hinges and skipping over the street and Ruby hit the street with all four paws set to full gallop.

She tore through the town, the moon high and fat above her, the wind in her fur, the road hard and alien beneath her paws. She threw back her head and howled, the buildings rushing past her in a blur of greys and yellow lights. She could scent it coppery and shocking in the alpine night. Her sister’s blood. Her pack mate harmed on this night and rage rose in her like a lava. She roared in a sound no wolf could make, her anger boiling from her in waves. Her eyes gleamed so dark a gold they were nearly red and her jaws gaped wide, crimson tongue lolling and white teeth shining in the moonlight.

Teeth that would soon drip red with the blood of whoever had hurt her pack.

 

_**Outside the Station…** _

 

Regina groaned. That had hurt.

That had hurt a LOT.

She dragged her arm out from beneath her body and got her other hand under her. She could smell her own blood and hear the howling in the night. Great. She kept trusting Charming to do ONE thing at a time and he could never manage it. Was it any wonder that she wasn’t a team player?

Come to think of it, that howling was a lot closer than it should be.

Regina blearily sat up, cradling her bloodied hand on her lap and her brows rose when she saw George.

He had completely succumbed to the transformation, writhing and howling. His gun lay forgotten on the ground and he savaged at his clothes, tearing them from his body. The moonlight speared into him in shafts, shredding his humanity, peeling the beast out from within. Grizzled white fur erupted from beneath his splitting skin, his eyes burned with a lurid blue light, jaws snapping and gnashing at nothing, ears lengthening and his senses imploding as they were sent sky high with the wolf form he was being forced to take.

Regina smirked.

“Idiot.” Regina laboured to her feet and groaned again.

Damn, that had been like getting hit with a hammer. Regina turned to the nearest street lamp and studied her palm. She ignored the screaming throng that had been a mob moments ago and gripped the butt of the bullet lodged into her skin and yanked it out with a wet _shlep_ of sound.

Bullets were faster and smaller than crossbow bolts, their kinetic force greater, but the basics were the same. Deflect and catch before it can ricochet.

Not as impressive as snatching a flying arrow from the air in front of a town hall’s worth of peasants, but she knew of no one else who could catch a .357 without even breaking a bone so she didn’t think she was doing too badly.

George continued to howl in the throes of his agony, fighting the change with every fibre of his being. Which only made it worse for himself really. If he just gave into it, it wouldn’t hurt nearly so much.

Regina leaned forward and caught her hands on her knees. She huffed out a breath and decided to wait it out. Once he was completely transformed, he’d be a lot easier to deal with.

Regina hadn’t been lying when she’d said she couldn’t turn him into a werewolf. No one could do that aside from another werewolf. She could, however, turn him into a _wolf_.

Just a wolf. No shape shifting, no vast speed or strength, just a wolf.

She’d always noticed that George’s hands were impeccably manicured, it hadn’t been until she’d been rummaging in the car and she’d found his nail clippings in the ashtray that she’d realised he did it himself. Hair was good for a spell, nails were better, nails rested on blood.

A tooth would have made it go quicker too, of course, but Regina hadn’t wanted to risk trying to knock one loose when he’d still had that gun in his hands. The spell was strong enough. She’d make him a wolf whether he wanted it or not.

At least, she would if the stubborn bastard every succumbed to his fate and let the magic do as it would. He was really only hurting himself. Stuck somewhere between human and wolf.

He looked mostly like a mangy and emaciated polar bear right then. Writhing on his back and gargling awful sounds into the night in time with the gushing steaming breaths gasping from within his misshapen chest.

Regina winced. She had been happy to do it to him but all of this squalling and wailing was just undignified.

“Oh stop it.” She snapped at him and straightened, watching him kick out of the last of his clothes and claw at his own head, raking furrows into his fur and skin. “You lost, take your medicine and admit it.”

George stopped his self-flagellation long enough to roar at her and lunge.

Regina rolled her eyes, his legs were mismatched and his body too fluid still to move properly. This wasn’t a werewolf transformation. A completely fluid energy state between one form and another, lasting a mere second and being completely painless. Regina’s spell was rewriting his DNA strand by strand and he was fighting it every step of the damn way.

Idiot.

Regina kicked his foot out from under him and he thrashed to the ground.

“What’s this?” Regina’s gaze landed on a scrap of black that did not belong. Stooping, she scooped up the raggedy material and frowned.

The hat. The hat that David had squashed when Emma and Snow had been sucked into it and he had idiotically trying to follow them.

Oh how her life might have been different had he succeeded.

Regina yelped when a clawed hand closed on her ankle and she was bowled over when George snatched at the hat and stuffed it into the newly enlarged gape of his mouth, chomping down, tearing it to shreds and devouring it as much as the magic that it contained.

“Get off!” Regina tried to snatch the hat back from between his teeth without losing some fingers she had grown attached to.

She was more irritated than anything else, but as far as Ruby was concerned, George was trying to eat her.

The brown wolf fell on them like the wrath of a primitive god and it was easy to see why hardened soldiers would flee from the frontlines and risk even Regina’s displeasure for desertion when confronted with such a beast.

Bigger than any normal wolf, the size of a pony. Four and a half feet at the shoulder, over twice that long from black nose to swishing tail, eyes that burned like coals, jaws that could crush bone, lined with knives of ivory teeth and all of that wrapped in fur the colour of pine trees in the dark and a speed no mortal creature could hope to match.

Ruby, having seen Regina knocked to the ground, scented her blood, zeroed in on the culprit.

Crimson magic sparked from her eyes and she roared. Not a wolf sound, not a human sound, a rage sound. The audible construct of the insensate anger that rioted through her. The righteous fury of a sister seeing her sibling harmed. It didn’t matter that there was no blood between them, not to the moon and not the wolf. The magic had been cast and the ties bound.

Regina was sent flying, one of Ruby’s paws kicking her out of the way and she pounced on George, claws rending and teeth tearing.

George, newly equipped to defend himself against such a foe, twisted onto his back and clawed at her with all four limbs. Twenty claws raking into Ruby’s chest and underbelly. His mouth, seeming to split his still almost human shaped head in half, snapped and clashed with mismatched teeth.

Clumps and tufts of fur flew, blood pattered onto the street and both wolf and malformed monster went at it hammer and tongs. Snarls rose into the night air amongst the steam of the overheated bodies of both magical beasts tearing at one another.

“Ruby, stop!” Regina tried to get close enough to get between both beasts but neither of them were willing to part long enough for her to intervene.

“Regina, get out of the way.” Daniel was suddenly there and he snatched her up off the street and turned, thrusting her into David’s arms.

“Daniel!” Regina lunged, trying to stop him, but he ignored her and waded into the wolves.

He wasn’t as fast as a werewolf but it would seem that he was more than a match in strength. Daniel grasped great handfuls of Ruby’s scruff and hauled, the chords in his neck and the muscles in his arms standing out in sharp relief when he pitted his strength against not one but two unnatural wolves.

Ruby had her teeth locked on George’s neck. Not over his throat but into the meat where his neck met his shoulder. Her teeth were sunk in to the gumline and she wasn’t letting go for anything.

Daniel worked his hands tighter, working his hands around her neck so he could press against her throat.

Magic or not, Ruby still had a physical body and that body had reflexes. Daniel made her gag and –in that instant when she coughed and parted her jaws- he hauled her away.

Ruby fought wildly, clawing and snarling, desperately trying to get back to George, to finish her job of defending her pack, but Daniel was having none of it. He hurled Ruby to the ground and knelt on her chest, a hand on her neck and her cheek keeping her pinned to the road.

David just as quickly released Regina and rushed forward, flinging the cloak over Ruby.

Daniel sprang away before he crushed Ruby’s smaller frame under his weight and his eyes landed on Regina.

He had a moment to grin at her, glad to see she was fine, before a massive weight fell on him.

“No!” Regina screamed and the spell that answered her call was not one that would have occurred to her on any night other than this.

It wouldn’t even have worked on any other night than this.

She felt it come, the strength, the instincts, the speed and –most of all- the _rage_. How DARE George touch her mate?

Regina, Regina the werewolf, flew through the air and tackled George before he could sink one claw into Daniel’s skin. They both went sprawling onto the road, tumbling over one another again and again.

Regina came out on top.

_Submit!_ She snarled in the wolf language. Making herself heard in the way that all werewolves could.

_Never!_ George bucked her off and Regina twisted like a cat in the air, scrambling to put herself between George and her family.

She snarled with a sound like a chainsaw.

_So be it._ Regina growled, lowering to a crouch and George flew at her.

If Ruby’s mindless savaging of George had been brutal and awe inspiring in its mindless ferocity, Regina’s was terrifying for its control.

She ducked under his lunge and leapt up into his body, sending George sprawling. He grunted when he hit the street and tumbled end over end. He was almost entirely a wolf now, only the whites of his eyes remained human.

_Submit!_ Regina demanded again.

George couldn’t summon words this time and he lunged again.

Regina sidestepped him once more, gripping him by the scruff and hurling him to the ground, knocking the air from his lungs.

Like this, she was bigger than he. He was just a wolf, the mass increase that the moon gave werewolves not being applicable to him.

_Stop this._ Regina ordered him. _Stop or you shall regret it._

George roared his defiance and lunged again, not looking at Regina, looking behind her to the people she protected.

No.

Never again.

Regina darted in, fast enough to show she could have done it at any time, and closed her teeth around his foreleg. With a single clip of her bear trap sized teeth, she snipped the limb off at the elbow.

George screamed, reeling back, animal pain taking over his brain and the last of his humanity left him.

He howled and quailed away from her, writhing in pain, hears pinned back, tail clamped between his legs and –just like that- she stood over a wolf who happened to be called George.

Regina shifted, taking human form once more, and held out her hands.

“Easy,” she edged closer to the terrified wolf that looked at her with wide blue eyes, whining plaintively. “Easy now, I’ll fix it.”

The wolf didn’t know why he believed her. This strange creature that loomed over him but he had the sense she was in charge and to disobey her would not be…it wouldn’t be wolf.

“Ssshhh…” Regina rested her hand over George the wolf’s eyes and her other over the bleeding stump of his leg.

The rest of which lay on the street, twitching and convulsing, shrinking back into a human hand and arm.

Magic flared beneath her palms and the wolf slept. Another moment and she had stopped the bleeding, sealing the wound. It would be angry and pink, need several days of healing –not to mention a cone of shame to keep him from licking it- but he would live. She hadn’t killed him.

Regina shrugged out of her coat and drew it over the sleeping wolf. To stop him from getting cold.

Regina might have quite happily killed George the king. George the wolf deserved no cruelty from her. He wouldn’t know anything about vendettas or hating Charming or guns or framing Ruby. He was just a wolf.

Regina’s eyes landed on something and her mouth turned down. Reaching out, she lifted the tattered remains of the hat. She gathered it in her hands and slowly stood. Turning it over and over.

Ruined. It was completely ruined. It had been crumpled but essentially still whole, but now it was nothing more than ribbing and rags. George had devoured most of the fabric in his rabid state and –Regina passed her hand over the remains, not even a flicker- he had eaten all of the magic.

Great, now she had a new pet, because she sure as hell wasn’t leaving a magic freaking wolf with anyone else and it wasn’t within her to destroy George in his current condition.

Regina was dragged –literally- from her thoughts by Daniel’s brawny arms engulfing her.

“You scared me!”

Regina smiled when no one could see. She felt the aftershocks of adrenaline begin to make themselves known. Handling George had been easy, even the mob had been an almost pleasant thrill, but catching the bullet, the werewolf shift, she began to shake so hard she nearly rattled.

“Regina? Are you alright?” Daniel’s voice filled with worry.

“I-I’m fine.” Regina’s teeth were chattering. No, this wasn’t adrenaline, this wasn’t how she reacted to that kind of rush. Her legs felt like they belonged to someone else. Her knees buckled and Daniel lowered her to the street whilst she tried to keep her breathing even and not pass out on him.

“David!” Daniel bellowed.

“What is it?” David was there in an instant, Ruby at his shoulder.

“I don’t know, she just started shaking.” “I’m f-f-fine.”

Regina shivered, hugging herself, the hat crushed against her chest.

“Just nee-eed a moment.”

“It’s change chills.” Ruby gently pushed Daniel aside and knelt beside Regina, the red of her cloak billowing around them both. “You turned into a werewolf, didn’t you?”

Ruby laughed. Only Regina would do the impossible and then insist she was just dandy afterwards.

“I didn’t-t-t think. J-j-ju-ust did it.” Regina couldn’t seem to get warm.

“You didn’t give it long enough to take.” Ruby rested her fingers against Regina’s forehead and frowned. “You’re burning up.”

“I’m freezing!” Regina disagreed fervently.

“What can we do?” Daniel shifted around so Regina could lean back against him. He wrapped her in his arms and rubbed at her back and shoulders to try and warm her.

“You need to change again, Reggie.” Ruby ducked her head so she was at eye level with Regina. “I need you to call the wolf and turn again.”

Regina couldn’t speak she was shivering so violently. She shook her head, huddling closer to Daniel. She didn’t even scowl at Ruby’s nickname for her.

“I know you just want to curl up and sleep for a week, but you have to call the wolf. You just took a big old bite out of magic that comes all the way from the moon, it’s got to go somewhere. If you don’t use it, it’s going to get rowdy.” Ruby spoke calmly with the authority of the only active werewolf on the whole damn planet.

“T-the hat.” Regina ground out, prying her arm away from her body and shivering it at David. “George had it. I-I-I’m so sorry, David.”

“Don’t worry about it,” David kept his reassuring smile. It was easier to focus on Regina’s problems than his own right then. “You need to do what Ruby says.”

“What happens if she can’t?” Daniel spoke in a low voice to Ruby.

Ruby’s eyes rose to meet his from under the shadow of her hood and she was quiet for long enough to make it clear she couldn’t think of a euphemism that wouldn’t make him lose his mind.

“T-Things w-w-will get hairy.” Regina laughed breathlessly and reached blindly. “Help me.”

“Sure.” Ruby hooked her arms under Regina’s without hesitation and helped her to her feet. She was still shivering violently but seemed determined.

“George.” Regina remembered suddenly.

“We’ll take care of him.” David nodded, watching her carefully. She looked like a drowning victim. Pale and tinged in blue.

“K-k-keep him away from people.” Regina spoke from between clenched teeth in order to try and stem her shivering. “He ate the hat, I don’t know what it will do to him.”

“We’ll put him in one of the pens in the animal shelter.” David nodded.

“I’ll keep watch over him.” Daniel stood, his hands clenched at his sides. He looked helpless and felt terrified.

“Come here.” Regina reached for him and he went to her willingly, taking her in his arms again. “I’ll be fine.”

Ruby set about removing her cloak and handing it to David. She kept a weather eye on Regina but let her have her moment with Daniel.

“See that you are.” He warned her, kissing her hair.

He was caught completely by surprise when she tilted her head back and went up on her toes, kissing him on the mouth instead. The contact was electrifying, wild energy crackling between them, and it didn’t last long because of her shivers, but it was the first time since the stables that _she_ had chosen to _kiss_ him.

“Lycanthropy isn’t a curse. True love’s kiss doesn’t cure it.” Regina spoke quietly against his mouth.

Daniel frowned. That was why she had kissed him?

“I knew that,” she continued a little breathlessly, “I kissed you because I wanted to.” Her hands squeezed his.

“Regina…” Ruby was watching the newest member of her pack with worry.

“Okay.” Regina glanced over at Ruby and then looked back to Daniel. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Promise?”

“Noon, by the Granny’s. I’ll take you on a date.”

He chuckled and cupped her face in his hands, looking at her as if it was for the last time.

“I love you.”

“I love you.” She smiled somewhat helplessly and then hauled herself from his grip before she gave into the insidious temptation to huddle in his arms and stay there.

It was exactly what she wanted to do, what her human body wanted to do to try and get rid of the wolf in her soul, but if she did that…well, it wouldn’t end well for anyone.

She sucked in a deep breath, called the magic and –when she opened her eyes again- she was the wolf once more.

Oh _yes_. This was good, this was natural.

She felt the moonlight wind its way in through her thick fur and course over her skin like a loving petting. Her tail whisked in the cool night air, she flexed her paws against the rough asphalt of the road and inhaled the scents of the entire county.

Opening her eyes, the world was a wash of sepia and silver, but she could see so much more. The stars were luminous over her head, the moon a stunning spotlight like a second sun. The ripples and eddies of the night air through her fur made her feel like she was touching the entire world. The hues and flushes of scents seemed to be more colour than she had ever seen as a human and the night was alive with sound and symphony.

She could hear the world turning in the ancient song of spheres. Despite all that, she trotted over to Daniel first and gave his hand a snuffle with her black nose.

He spread his fingers, not wanted to give insult in wolf etiquette, and let her press her brow against his knuckles.

A soft yip behind her turned Regina and she found a sister wolf waiting on the street for her.

Ruby. Her sister! A sudden joy filled Regina and she threw back her head and howled, rearing a little and dancing with her front paws.

Ruby’s ears perked and her tail flew up in surprise. Then she joined her sister in the howl and their haunting cries rose through the night.

Then they were gone.

Daniel, his eyes keener than David’s, watched them disappear towards the tree line.

They cavorted and chased one another, yipping and howling with sounds so low humans couldn’t hear them.

She looked…happy.

Daniel was glad. Regina had always wanted more family and now she had the chance for one. Daniel grinned.

Now they had a chance for one. Things were finally looking up.

It was a pity that he had no idea what was going to happen the very next morning before they ever got that date.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20 – Cursing Blue**

 

_**The Forest...** _

 

_Ruby._

Ruby grumbled at the voice and snuggled deeper into the bed of leaves she had collapsed on the night before.

_Ruby, wake up_.

“Five more…min’ts…” Ruby feebly waved away whoever was bothering her.

She was tired. She and Regina had galloped the night away under the full moon. There was another night of it ahead of them if Regina hadn’t gotten over the change chills. She had seemed fine after a couple of hours in the wolf shape the night previous, but it wasn’t something you wanted to take chances with. Turning from a human to another species entirely was a hefty piece of magic and you didn’t want all that power running riot.

Ruby had seen wolves burned up from it and it was never pretty. The magic just consumed them. Ate them whole.

She frowned and shuddered, cuddling deeper into herself.

_Ruby_. The voice was firmer. _Get UP_. _I have to show you something._

Ruby grumbled but made no move to rise.

She shot upright when a thunderous bark sounded right in her ear.

“Jesus, Regina!” Ruby’s heart galloped in her chest and she panted in surprise. “What the hell?!”

_You wouldn’t get up_. The gigantic wolf, Regina, didn’t look contrite in the slightest.

Ruby’s eyes widened, staring at Regina’s wolf form. She glanced up as if to double check that the sun was high in the sky and then back to Regina. Wolf Regina.

“What happened? Why are you still a wolf? Are you okay?”

_I’m fine._ Regina lifted a paw and waved it away in a manner that would have been funny had Regina not been breaking several laws of magic right then.

Werewolves turned at the full moon. End of.

Advanced wolves could pick and choose when they turned over the three nights of Wolf’s Time, but it was always at night because the moon had to be watching in order for them to do it. That was where they got their power from. They couldn’t do it during the day. It didn’t happen. Maybe Ruby should have explained that to her new pack.

_Stop gawping, it’s unattractive._ Regina shifted, sitting straighter and tucking her tail about her legs in a move far too cat-like for any self-respecting wolf to adopt. _This is what I wanted to show you._

“Are you stuck? Can’t you turn back? The sun’s up, you should have switched back when that happened. I don’t get it. Wolves CAN’T change during the day.”

_And what good is that? It occurs to me that, even though you retain a great portion of strength and speed outwith Wolf’s Time, it is a bare fraction of what you have under the full moon._ Regina cocked her head and looked out at the forest for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

Difficult to do when she could hear a rabbit over there, smell an interesting trail just ahead of her, and taste the refreshing stream a dozen or so yards that way. She shook it away.

_I figured it out._

“Figured what out?” Ruby rubbed at her eyes and tried not to panic.

David would kill her. He’d had his new deputy for all of five minutes and Ruby had turned her into the K-9 division already.

Ruby didn’t even want to think about how Daniel would react.

_How we can turn without the moon_.

“That’s impossible.”

It is a little known fact that wolves have eyebrows. People are rarely close enough and calm enough to note how expressive a wolf face is, but it is quite emotive in its own terrifying way.

Regina cocked an eyebrow at Ruby then.

“Okay, fine, you get that one, but it SHOULD be impossible.”

_Why? The moon affects everything. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Do the tides stop when the moon is not over the oceans? It is always a full moon_ somewhere. _Once you know that, it’s quite simple._

“If you say so.” Ruby tucked her knees up towards her chest and looped her arms around them. “I’m not the one that can take any form she wants.”

Regina snuffed a snort of irritation.

_You’re not listening_. Regina walked her front paws out in front of her and lay down sphinx style so that she was closer to Ruby’s height rather than towering over her. _The ability to change is always within you, Ruby. I’m not a werewolf, not really. I can turn into one, yes, but I would only be a werewolf. According to you, I should not be able to take this dire wolf form without the moon to guide me, yet here I am. If I simply turned into a werewolf as you say they exist then I would be in human form right now. A werewolf under the skin, a creature with the ability to take on the form of a wolf, but appearing no different to my usual form._

“My head hurts.” Ruby grumbled. “So…you’re not using your magic to take this form, you’re using werewolf magic to do it?”

_I am still a sorceress underneath the werewolf. Can a normal werewolf do this?_

Ruby yelped and scrambled backwards when Regina lifted her muzzle and howled, but this time there was an accompaniment of fire along with the haunting cry of a wolf.

“No.” Ruby spoke weakly.

_See? Your kind are not as limited as you believe. I would wager that, with practice, you might be able to take on forms other than that of the wolf._ Regina smirked, smoke still trailing from her nostrils. _I don’t think you realise how vast your powers truly are. You can take on a different FORM. That is a skill that only the most advanced can learn. Between your shapes, you are entirely energy, the possibilities are limitless. Do you really think that even the moon can hold sway over you that much?_

“I…” Ruby looked out over the forest and smiled softly. What would it be like? To run as a wolf whenever she wanted…to fly as a hawk? Could she really do it? “You’d teach me?”

_Of course_. Regina dipped her head in a nod.

“Okay.” Ruby nodded. “Show me.”

Regina chuckled, a strange chuffing sound.

_You smell magic, yes?_

Ruby nodded. That was as close an approximation as any.

_Then scent carefully_. Regina deliberately made the change slow as much as she could. Ruby scented it.

The moonlight, that which she had assumed was moonlight, came from within Regina rather than being beaten down on her from the light of the moon. It boiled up from the deepest, darkest, parts of her. Suffusing her entire body and melting it apart.

For a second, a bare hint of a moment, Regina was something else entirely. Something wonderful. Without shape or restriction, she was _her_. Not the suit of meat that was her body, not the image everyone else saw, but all the bits that made her Regina. Her thoughts, her feelings, her soul.

She was more beautiful, brighter, than Ruby had imagined possible.

Then the light died down and Regina was sitting on the ground opposite Ruby. She was panting, a sweat slicked her skin, slowing something so fast to something someone could watch was no easy task. It would be like a civilian trying to control a sneeze into stop-motion.

“You get that?”

Ruby thought about it a moment and then suddenly she was the wolf, towering over Regina.

Both of them grinned, showing off all their teeth.

_I think I got it._

 

_**The Animal Shelter...** _

 

Two ginormous wolves trotted along the street. Each of them as big as a pony, unmindful of cars and staring humans both, and jogging along shoulder to shoulder. Both of them were a deep brown, almost black, colour with thick shaggy coats and lolling red tongues panting from between huge ivory teeth.

One was slightly bigger than the other and she had lurid golden eyes that hinted at a playful wildness that was just waiting to be unleashed. The second was slightly smaller, her eyes so dark that she seemed to be more a shadow than a real animal, and her ears twitched at every sound. Her teeth had a cruel gleam to them and there was the very real sense that she would not only bite someone if she had to but was looking forward to the opportunity to do so.

Their destination seemed to be, ironically, the animal shelter and neither of them seemed surprised to find the Sheriff and Granny waiting for them outside. They had followed their scents there, after all. Henry, however, was not expected.

A burst of magic and the smaller wolf turned between one step and the next. Regina shook off the change and hurried to her son.

“Henry? Are you alright?” She went to him immediately, tipping his chin up so she could study his face.

“I’m alright.” Henry wound his arms around her waist and huddled into her.

He didn’t speak for a long moment, seeking comfort from the woman who he had always gone to when he was frightened.

She smelled different. She smelled wild and of the forest, but under that was the apples and her shampoo and the smell that was just _mom_.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart.” Regina stroked his hair and then looked up to David, her face concerned and a question in her eyes.

David nodded his head towards the animal shelter. They’d talk where Henry couldn’t hear.

“That’s good.” Henry made no move to pull away and Regina grew more concerned.

This wasn’t like him. He was fiercely independent. The only time he got like this was when he was sick and he hadn’t needed comfort like this since he was much younger.

“David told me what happened. Did you really bite off George’s leg?”

“Well…he started it.” Regina looked down into Henry’s face when he tilted his chin up to look at her. Henry gave a watery smile.

“You did it so you wouldn’t have to kill him, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

Regina was struck then by how different Henry’s childhood was from that of other children. Other boys didn’t have to ask their mothers why they had dismembered people nor be grateful that she had chosen to maim and cripple rather than kill. Henry had always been special to her and he always would be. He had grown up as the son of a Mayor and now that of the Evil Queen so he would never be Average Joe’s son…but he shouldn’t have to be her moral compass either.

“Hey,” Henry gave her a squeeze so that she focussed on him again, “you are getting better. I know it.”

Regina smiled. She had always touted that she knew Henry better than any of his biological family claimed to but she seemed to have a non-existent memory when it came to remembering that street went both ways.

“I’m glad.” Regina dropped a kiss on his forehead and he nodded, finally pulling a little away from her. Dropping his arms from around her waist but leaning into her side and resting his head under her hand while she stroked his hair. Regina lifted her head to take in the rest of the group and found Granny advancing on her.

“Girl.” Granny stopped uncertainly and watched Regina. She spoke stiltedly. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Regina looked wary.

She wasn’t afraid of Granny, per say, but she was certainly aware that she didn’t want to go toe-to-toe with the woman.

“For saving Ruby, for taking care of George…you didn’t have to.” Granny looked surprised that Regina wouldn’t know what she was talking about but Regina wasn’t exactly familiar with the concept of gratitude.

“Yes I did.” Regina was looking more and more uncomfortable the longer the conversation went on. She seemed almost defensive. “She’s my sister. You made certain of that and –if anybody knows anything about me- it’s that I tend to get attached to family.” Regina squeezed Henry’s shoulder and Granny smirked.

“Maybe I did know that.” Granny smiled when Ruby –still looking absurdly pleased with herself from having learned a new trick- joined them to lean on Granny’s shoulder.

“Heya, Henry, you look awful.” Her face took on a look of concern when she saw Henry.

“Thanks.” Henry smiled weakly and Regina rubbed at his shoulder.

“Tell you what,” Ruby stepped forward and sank down in front of him into a crouch, “how about you and me go down to the diner and make up the biggest breakfast you've ever eaten? The kind with eggs and pancakes and bacon and toast and everything. Hot chocolate, whipped cream and cinnamon on the side . I dunno about anyone else, but I’m starving.”

Regina felt her stomach growl in appreciation of the sentiment.

“Mom?” Henry looked up at her.

“You go on ahead. I need to check on George.”

“The vet says he’s fine.” David chimed in. “You can go with Henry.”

“The vet doesn’t know everything I do.” Regina corrected him.

David caught on, the hat….and Regina had bitten him when she was a werewolf. The last thing David wanted was George having the ability to come back whenever it most suited him.

If Ruby could now apparently switch whenever she wanted, what was to stop George from doing it?

“Can I come with you?” Henry looked up at Regina again.

“No, honey. George might be tame with me, but I don’t trust him with anyone else.” Regina went down into a crouch beside him. “You go with Ruby. She’s your aunt now, you’ll have some stuff to talk about, I would think.”

“Yeah,” Ruby grinned, “I get to be the bad influence that gives you too much candy and lets you watch movies you’re not supposed to.”

Henry smiled, aware that he was being deflected but going along with it. He was mainly glad that his mom was okay. She seemed peaceful today. Even if he wasn’t, it was something that she was.

“Okay.”

“I’ll be along soon.” Regina promised.

“Come on, short-stack.” Ruby held out her hand and Henry went to her, Ruby settling her arm around his shoulders and giving a nod to Regina. She’d look out for him as if he were her own. Because he kind of was now.

“I’ll keep an eye on them.” Granny reassured Regina and looked uncertain a moment.

Regina yelped in surprise when she was suddenly hauled into a somewhat terrifying bear hug. It lasted a second and seemed to make them both incredibly uncomfortable, but Granny had determined that it had to be done.

“Be wary of that wolf. He’s not like us.” Granny levelled a finger in Regina’s face. “And don’t keep your man waiting. A promise is a promise.”

“I never actually promised…I’ll be there.” Regina caved under Granny’s glare.

“See that you are.” Granny nodded. Regina huffed out a sigh and watched as Granny hurried off to join Henry and Ruby.

“Family’s tough.” She spoke mainly to herself but David replied anyway.

“Yeah, but they tend to be worth it.”

“In my experience, not so much.” Regina shook her head and ignored David’s penetrating stare. She tried to deflect. “So, why isn’t Henry in school?”

“He didn’t sleep last night.”

“Again?” Regina looked up at David, concern etched on her face. “Because of me?”

“I dunno.” David didn’t look untroubled by it either. “He tossed and turned all night and eventually gave up at about four this morning. I found him staring at the TV when I got up this morning. I figured he must be worried about you and he seems a lot better for having seen you but…” He shrugged. “Maybe he’s missing…”

Regina looked away from him and down the street to where she could still see Henry growing smaller and smaller with distance.

“She’s been gone for a while.”

“We’ll get them back.” David rested his hand on her shoulder but it seemed more to steady himself than comfort her.

“I am sorry about the hat. I tried to get it back. I really did. I didn’t even know he had it. I…”

“I believe you.”

Regina stalled under those three little words. She’d had no idea they would mean so much to her. She looked up at him and found him smiling down at her.

“Really?”

“Really.” He nodded. “I don’t expect you to have forgiven Snow, forty years is a long time of entrenched habit, but I do believe you’re my friend and you wouldn’t hurt me like that. You might be psychotic and making friends is something alien to you but you’re crazy loyal to those you choose to be with. It’s there for anyone to see.”

“Then how come you’re the only one to have ever seen it?” Regina arched a brow at him and smirked.

He was very sweet sometimes. Maybe Snow didn’t have _terrible_ taste.

“Henry sees it, he showed me actually. Daniel, Rachel, Ruby, Granny, they all see it. Other people will too. Give them time.”

“No thank you.” Regina wrinkled her nose in distaste. “You people are all so ridiculously affectionate as it is. How am I supposed to get anything done with everyone _hugging_ all the time?”

David chuckled and dropped his hand from her shoulder.

“Now, about that wolf of mine, what have you done with him?” Regina quickly changed the subject before he could try and endear her to the dwarves or something.

“He’s in isolation.” David started up the steps to the animal shelter, allowing himself to be distracted. “We had Carson, the vet, check him over. He seems alright, a bit dehydrated from blood loss and a little groggy from whatever sleeping whammy you put on him. We put an IV in and a buster collar on him and left him to sleep it off.”

“His leg?”

“Healed like it’s years old apparently.” David held the door open for her and Regina nodded her thanks to him.

“Good.”

“So, what are you thinking?” David directed her to the isolation ward.

“That he ate a hat that contained magic capable of opening portals between worlds and I have no idea what that will do to a wolf that used to be a man. That he is a wolf that used to be a man and I have no idea how much of the man remains. That I crippled him and –while I was quite happy to do that to the bastard of a man that he was- I’ve sentenced an old wolf to a life as a cripple and he couldn’t hope to fend for himself were we to release him into the wild. That I bit him while I was a werewolf and so he might have the ability to turn back into George or perhaps even some…Hulk style wolf come the full moon. I’m thinking, if that is the case, then he’ll have to be put down and…I don’t know if I can do that.”

Regina stopped and looked up at him before they could go through the door into the specialised ward.

“I’ve never killed in cold blood before.” She frowned. “You might not believe it, but I had my reasons. For everything I did, I had reasons. Sitting him on a table –and he would go if I asked him, I’m his alpha as far as he’s concerned- sticking a needle in his paw…I couldn’t do that.”

David frowned down at her and realised he could live to be a hundred years old and she would still be able to surprise him. He smiled.

“Let’s just go and have a look at him with those magical hands of yours. We can worry about the what if’s and why for’s later.”

“Don’t borrow trouble?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Because that’s a sure fire way of getting killed?”

“I’ve lived this long.” David shrugged his shoulders and she rolled her eyes at him, pushing her way into isolation.

“You’re so simple.” Regina could sense where George was instantly.

She might not be a werewolf full time, but it would seem that her wolf was there to stay in the back of her mind. So far it had only been helpful, perhaps she’d take David’s advice and leave well enough alone until it became a problem.

“I’m not stupid.” David made sure to close the door behind them.

“I didn’t say you were. Not today anyway. I said you were simple. There is a great difference betwixt the two. Hello, George.” Regina found his cage and sank down into a crouch in front of it.

George the wolf opened his eyes and lifted his head. He whined softly, his thick tail thudding against the stainless steel sides of the hospital cage. It was made deliberately smaller so sick animals couldn’t hurt themselves by moving around too much and George was large for a wolf. Large for a wolf was something indeed.

Regina as a werewolf was gigantic but that was lycanthropy for you. George was disproportionately large. Maybe it was because his mass hadn’t changed, shrinking his brain would have been inadvisable unless she had wanted a furry vegetable rather than a wolf. Then again maybe he really did have a bit of werewolfism in him already.

He spanned the cage from one side to the other and even then he was curled up a little. His fur was thick and looked softer than a normal wolf’s fur. Possibly something to do with it once having been human hair. He was mostly white with markings of silver over his face, back, tail and legs. He had been a redhead in his youth and it showed with an arrow of crimson streaking from his nose towards his eyes, the tips of his ears were red too and a streak of it ran along his spine and tail. He was quite a handsome specimen for a wolf.

The only things marring his wildness were the glaring empty space where his right foreleg should be, the needle and IV in the back of his remaining forepaw and the massive white plastic cone that collared about his thick neck.

George showed absolutely no signs of aggression towards her. His tail continued to thump in a steady wag, his ears ticked towards her and he whined, shuffling towards her in the cramped cage.

“Poor boy.” Regina melted for an animal in trouble, as she always had, and her hands went to the latch of the cage.

“Regina.” David stepped forward and George looked at him hard, his ears pinning back.

Regina probed gently with magic and found nothing but the protectiveness of a wolf for a fellow pack member. George as a wolf knew Regina but he didn’t know David and strangers were not to be trusted until they proved to be friendly or benign at the least.

“He’s fine.” Regina decided after a long moment of double checking. “He’s not tame, but he won’t hurt me. You might want to stand back though.”

She waited until David took three large steps back to bar the door from George’s escape should he try and folded his arms over his chest. She knew he’d have one resting on the butt of his gun.

Regina slowly opened the cage, making no sudden moves and keeping a weather eye on her wolf. She looked deep into his lurid blue eyes and pushed mentally at him. Nothing.

George’s tail thumped once or twice in an uncertain wag, he was aware of her questioning him but he didn’t know the answers to her queries.

Almost nothing remained of George the man. A couple of personality traits, he was arrogant and standoffish to those he didn’t like, he would not forget those who wronged him, but he had little concept of the past and –whilst Regina hadn’t omitted his memories with her spell- she had taken the human element from them. The concept of vengeance. She had changed his mind, not his soul.

He was still essentially George, but his life was just a string of experiences; something to be learned from but not agonised over. He accepted that Charming had betrayed him but also knew he had wronged the man by trying to hurt him in return. That was not wolf and he had no desire to do it again.

Regina, she was wolf too as far as George was concerned. His Alpha. She had turned him into the wolf but that was hardly something to be angry about, he liked being a wolf.

Regina smiled and his tail wagged again. He was pleased when she was pleased.

“Okay, this might hurt a little.” Regina leaned over and settled her hand on his paw, carefully withdrawing the needle from it.

George’s ears ticked back in discomfort, but he didn’t bite or snap.

Once he was free of it, Regina moved on to removing the collar from about his neck and she sat back on her heels.

“Alright.”

George scrambled to go to her and get out of the cage. He was clumsy and wobbly on three legs, his paws slithering on the metal, but Regina helped him stay upright and –after a moment- he made it out of the cage to sit in front of her.

“Good boy.” Regina scratched his ear for him and then moved onto examining him. From nose to tail. He even allowed her to peel back his lips and show off his gigantic teeth. “Huh.”

“What is it?”

“He’s not an old wolf.” Regina rested a hand against George’s chest and looked over at David. “He’s mature, certainly, but not a geriatric as I thought he’d be.”

“Goody.” David spoke flatly.

“He’s not George anymore, David. Not in that way.”

“You mean he doesn’t remember trying to destroy my family?”

“He remembers.” Regina tilted her head and thought how to explain. “He knows he did it, he knows the events that led up to doing it but he has no concept of why he did it. Revenge is a human emotion, not a wolf one.”

“Hmm.” David looked uncomfortable with that and Regina could identify.

Hating someone for so long became a sort of comfort after a while. A touchstone. Things might change, the world turned upside down, loves lost and friends drifted away from, but hate usually remained a constant. It was more than a little disconcerting when that stopped being the case.

“What about the hat? The magic?”

“I have no idea. It’s in there, I can feel it, but it’s as stable as it was in the hat. It may be in his bones. If it is, then it’s there to stay, if not then his body will use it up the same way it would any other energy.”

“He’ll shit it out?”

Regina frowned.

“A little crudely put,” she sighed at him, “but yes, that is accurate.”

“Which means we won’t be able to get Snow and Emma back without it.”

“Maybe.” Regina straightened and George lunged to his feet to stand beside her. He was so big that the top of his ears brushed her elbow. “Maybe not. There are still ways for Emma and Snow to return. Ways that are in the Enchanted Forest. If they’re smart enough then they should be able to find them…if they survive everything else too.”

David looked at the floor and Regina crossed to him, to touch her fingers to his elbow.

“I haven’t stopped looking either. I’m in no hurry for them to return but you and Henry seem pretty attached to them so I suppose I had better do what I can.”

David huffed a laugh and smiled. He looked up at her again with a flicker of hope in his eyes.

“I was ready to shoot him, you know.” David nodded down to George. “When I thought that he’d taken Snow and Emma from me…I was ready to do bad things.”

“But you didn’t.” Regina smiled. “That’s what I’m here for.”

“And for that I’m sorry.”

Regina frowned, a little thrown by that. She shook her head.

“It would have happened anyway. I mean, if my mother had accidentally crossed the line too far when I was younger and killed me,” she shrugged, “Rumplestiltskin would have found someone else for his protégé and they would have cast the curse.”

David was frowning at her.

“What?”

“Your mother…?”

Regina’s jaw clenched when she realised what she had said. She shook her head.

“It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s not.” David straightened away from the doors. “You just said she might have killed you.”

Regina heaved a sigh.

“David…drop it.”

David was quiet a long moment and when he finally spoke, he surprised her.

“Does Daniel know? I mean, can you talk to him about it?”

Regina blinked, caught off guard.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Obviously some part of you does or you wouldn’t have mentioned it.” David disagreed. “I’m just saying, it doesn’t have to be me.”

Regina rocked back on her heels and absently buried her fingers in George’s thick fur. He leaned into her a little.

“Daniel…Daniel knows most of it.”

“Maybe you should tell him all of it.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Why would I do that to him? My mother is dead. There’s no vengeance for him to seek and I don’t want him on that path even if there was.” Regina shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know what made me think of her. Maybe it’s all the family that seems to be attaching itself to me.” She tried for a weak smile and David let her off the hook.

“Yeah, maybe.” He nodded at George again. “What do you want to do with him?”

“Take him home, I suppose. With all the magic going through him, he’s become very valuable and possibly dangerous if it manifests. Probably best if I keep an eye on him.”

“You’re sure?”

“The alternative is Granny and I don’t think she’s going to warm up to him any time soon.” Regina smirked and David sighed.

“I suppose it’s not like they can say wolves aren’t allowed in the diner.” David watched the wolf for a long moment and then looked up at Regina. “Breakfast?”

“God, yes!” Regina grinned. “I am starving.”

“Alright, let’s put him back in a bigger kennel for now. I know you say he’s fine and I believe you but…let’s give it a couple of days to see how the magic settles?”

“See? A little caution.” Regina nodded. “You’re learning.”

“It’s not one sided.” David told her archly and led her to the kennels.

It was a few moments to settle George in a larger space of his own and a few moments more for Regina to convince him that she would be back soon.

He looked so sad at being left alone and more than a little annoyed with being confined but he did it because she asked it of him.

David realised that George would certainly jump up onto the table for the vet to put him to sleep if Regina did so little as snap her fingers and point and that clinched it. He really wasn’t George anymore.

They made it out the front doors of the shelter and down the steps down to street level before it went to shit.

“Regina!”

Regina whirled and was momentarily stopped from seeing who had shouted by David shoving her behind him in a pointless display of chivalry. Regina leaned around him and frowned.

“Blue?” She huffed a sigh and stepped around David. “What do you want?”

Regina didn’t have time to even raise a shield before the blast of faerie magic sent her reeling.

She was kicked clean off her feet and sent skyward. She flew through the air for a heart stopping stretch of seconds, enough time to brace herself, and then crashed back down onto the road, tumbling over and over herself.

Regina didn’t waste time feeling sorry for herself and flipped over her own shoulder, rising up into a crouch and glaring at Blue, her lips peeled back over her teeth in a silent snarl.

“Blue, put the wand down onto the ground and your hands over your head.” David spoke calmly and clearly, his gun levelled at Blue.

“You defend her?” Blue frowned at David.

“She’s an officer of the law and my friend. You’re damn right I defend her.”

“She is evil!”

“She’s not the one slinging magic around for no reason!” David cocked the gun. “Wand on the ground. NOW.”

Blue twitched the wand instead and David’s gun was suddenly gone. He made a sound of surprise but didn’t let it bother him too much. He shrugged out of his jacket and rolled back his sleeves, his face set in a stubborn expression.

Regina was stunned. He intended to go hand to hand. With the Blue Faerie? Madness.

Regina rose to her feet, wincing at the bruises she could already feel forming.

Blue’s eyes zeroed in on her, counting her as the more credible threat. So long as Regina continued to be so, David would be ignored. Which was just as well.

Right now, Blue believed Regina to be using David, as soon as she figured out that Regina actually cared…well, Regina would deal with it if it came to that, but she wasn’t about to let Blue kill her friend.

She wasn’t sure about friends, or if she even really liked them, but she did want the chance to find out on her own.

Besides, Henry had lost enough family members because of Regina. She could hardly build one of her own at the cost of his.

“Blue, think about this.” Regina realised the bad taste in her mouth was blood rather than a reaction to Blue. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. “They’ll eat you alive.”

“Once you’re gone, the spell will be broken and they won’t feel this false affection for you.” Blue spat at her. She was in her full righteous indignation. The most dangerous kind of fervour. She wasn’t going to back down in a hurry.

Regina’s jaw clenched.

“You know that’s not true.” Regina tried to keep calm.

She didn’t summon magic, she made no aggressive move, she wasn’t going to strike first. If she did, she couldn’t kill Blue. This had to be self-defence.

“Those are Old Ways, Blue.” Regina shook her head. “Granny invoked them, not me. I can’t break the connection any more than you can and –if you kill me- they’ll go mad. They’ll tear this town apart to get to you.”

“No they won’t. I’ll show them. What you did to George, you’re slipping. Sinking back into your old habits.” Blue kept her wand levelled at Regina and began to circle.

Regina turned, keeping her in front of her, trying to put herself between Blue and David.

“George was dangerous, he was going to kill Ruby. I was protecting my family.” Regina snarled.

“George was a citizen of this town who deserved a trial for his crimes.”

“Like I got?” Regina scoffed. “Like Rumple got? Come on, Blue, you’ve never taken on a foe you couldn’t beat or use to your advantage. I’m hardly likely to trust in your sense of justice or fairness.”

“Better to face trial than to be maimed!”

“Oh, so a noose is better than losing a limb? Said the creature that’s never faced a firing squad or felt death at their shoulder. You’ve lost touch with your humanity.”

“I have lived for many years, it gives a long view.” Blue’s mask was melting, the immortal coming to the fore. Her true face.

“Bullshit.” Regina smiled though it seemed more teeth than anything else. “The Dark One has to be ages with you and even he knows right from wrong. Even he can love. You’re nothing. A hollowed out husk. A shell of a creature that deserves no less than to be crushed beneath my boot heel.”

Regina was pushing her. She had to. This was going to be a fight, regardless of what she did. Better here and now rather than in a crowded street filled with the rest of the town.

“I may be evil, but at least I still feel.”

“You DARE?!” Blue thundered, magic sparking from the tip of her wand. “You have seen nothing of what I have seen! Know nothing of the horrors I have saved the people of our world from. You’re just the next in a long line of disasters I’ve had to avert.”

“Little late for that, isn’t it?”

Blue’s face hardened.

“Admit it, the only reason you’re taking me on now is because you’re convinced you can finally win. Where was this altruism, this paladin sensibility, back in the Enchanted Forest? All the things I did, all the atrocities I committed, you could have stopped me at any time and you DIDN’T! Who’s worse now, Blue?” Regina seethed, past hurts rising to the surface.

She had called to the Blue Faerie when she was younger, when she couldn’t stand the tortures of her mother any longer. She had cried and wailed and begged to be released from the hell that had been her upbringing. Her reward? Silence.

“I only acted. I did something about how my life was turning out. I helped myself. You? You could have acted. You could have saved me when I was a child, you could have shown me there was another way, you could have done ANYTHING other than ignore me because of who my mother was!” Regina was nearly screaming now.

“Not just your mother.” Blue smirked. “You think you were the threat? A mere quailing child? You think Cora was what stopped me from interfering? The Dark One and I have an agreement. He doesn’t meddle in my business, and I leave his well enough alone. No longer. You’re out from under the protection of his twisted purpose. Now? Now you’re mine.”

Regina was stunned.

Rumplestiltskin? Her…?

No. Blue was toying with her. This had to be a ploy. To distract her.

It worked.

Regina threw up her hand against the blast of magic, but too late. It hit her square in the chest, splashing over her, digging in, taking hold. She fought it viciously, aware that David was screaming, reaching for her. It cost her a precious second to cast him away from the magic lest it spill onto him too.

Teleportation spell.

_Never let yourself be taken to the second location._

She was sucked into the space Between. An airless void, the place all practitioners jaunted to between points of teleportation. She had no idea where she was going but she knew she didn’t want to end up there.

Luckily for her, she wasn’t a quailing child anymore and she certainly didn’t need to rely on the help of anyone else to free her of this spell.

She picked it like a two pin lock and it snapped open, spitting her out into the real world again. Regina had time to note they were still within the town’s borders –of course they would be, Blue was homicidal, not stupid- and suck in a breath before she hit the ground. All the air coughed from her lungs when she crashed into the ground. She instinctively tucked and rolled, saving herself from broken bones with a hastily and poorly constructed shield.

It was several yards of skipping like a stone over water before she finally tumbled to a halt.

Seconds.

She had seconds before Blue realised she wasn’t where she was supposed to be and she flogged herself into motion. She didn’t have time to waste, she needed weapons, a defence. She wracked her brain for the old spells she had used in her training days, when Rumple had tried to kill her on a daily basis to ‘toughen her up’.

She hadn’t used them in years, she was out of practice.

She had never stopped studying magic, of course, but reading a book is different from practical work and Blue was no mortal duellist. She was an ageless creature of incredible power that was intent on hanging Regina’s skin on her wall. This was not going to be a pretty fight.

Regina lifted herself, staggering to her feet, coughing, trying to remember how to breathe properly. She succeeded just in time for the noose to cinch around her neck.

Regina choked, pure faerie magic circling her throat, and was hauled off her feet like the other end of the rope was attached to a race car. Her limp shield offered dim protection to her back and it was the only thing that stopped her from having the skin there flayed clean off.

She didn’t bother reinforcing it and she worked frantically on the space she could still affect with her magic whilst the faerie power imprisoned her. Her own body. She lit up the different contingency spells she had lain into her bones for situations exactly like this and struck them to light like a match over a brick wall. She cried out in pain as the changes took effect and the last of her air left her lungs.

Regina left the ground again, arcing up in a wheel and smashed down into the road.

Again and again, she was hauled up and cracked into the asphalt, shattering, buckling, destroying…the road.

Regina’s spells had gone into reinforcing her blood, her tissues, her bones, rather than the protective energies around her. The tough covering of the road gave way to her newly increased density. Basic law of physics; that which is moving faster, comes off better. Regina was moving very fast indeed.

Enough of this.

The next time Regina smashed into the road, crumpling through the top layer and into the dirt beneath, she used the last of her senses that weren’t succumbing to asphyxiation to latch onto something. Her hand thrust through the earth until it hit metal and she manacled a grip there.

The spell rope yanked on her neck again but this time Blue found Regina immovable. She made a sound of surprise but by that point Regina already had her feet under her. One hand on the mains pipe, the other wrapping around the rope, ignoring the burns, she hauled.

Oh yes, the wards had also made Regina a lot stronger too.

Blue was sent flying, feet clean off the ground, reeling across the street and smashing into the body of a pick-up so hard it nearly folded in half.

Regina attacked the magic next. Nearly pure force, no lock to pick as it were, but everything had a breaking point. Regina set her hands to the noose about her neck and hauled. She bared her teeth, every muscle in her arms, shoulders and back straining against the immoveable force. She didn’t need to pull it off, not entirely, just…enough…to…

Regina collapsed to her knees in relief when she managed to stretch the rope for an inch of give. She sucked in great whooping breaths, the red receding from her vision, her heart pounding in her ears. She felt dizzy, with relief or a lungful of oxygen she couldn’t tell, but it gave her a chance to glance about her surroundings.

“Yes, because turning up on the doorstep of a wolf den intent on murdering one of their pack is guaranteed to endear you to them.” Regina wheezed.

Main Street, they were on Main Street. Right outside Granny’s diner.

She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that she had managed to break Blue’s spell over Granny’s lair. She drew power from this place too now.

The pick-up exploded. Regina flinched back from the sound, whirling to pay attention to her possibly imminent demise and her brows rose when Blue peeled apart the car with her magic and stepped onto the street once more. She looked pissed.

Lifting her wand, the rope of magic around Regina’s neck still attached to it, she gave a contemptuous flick. Regina was sent sprawling again but she had her fingers under the rope now, she was no longer choking. Which left her clear to think.

Blue hauled her closer and closer, shrinking the rope, bringing Regina to within arm’s reach and Regina bided her time. she waited until Blue reached down, waited until her fingers gripped Regina’s hair and she fell back on her old faithful; flames.

Regina set fire to herself.

Blue shrieked when the flames raced up her arm towards her face, setting that ridiculous blue cloak of hers aflame. She reeled backwards, slapping at the fire, trying desperately to put it out and Regina smiled a grim smile.

She got to her feet, wreathed entirely in flame. Okay, this was better, now they were getting even.

Blue tossed her cloak to the ground, stomping on the flames and that was her first mistake. Now that it was no longer on her, it was hardly a threat. People always made that mistake with fire. If there was nothing for it to eat, it would eventually starve. When it was done with Blue’s cloak, it would burn out on the barren road.

Regina lunged, not going for Blue, but her wand. If she could get that, things would definitely sway in her favour.

She should have known better.

Blue’s skin might be vulnerable to Regina’s magic, might burn in flame, her bones might break under Regina’s strength. She relied entirely on her magic to keep her safe so it was pretty idiotic of Regina to assume that she could just take Blue’s wand from her.

The anti-theft charm exploded like a damn grenade. Regina was sent reeling, blasted off her feet again. Only the increased density of her body and the charms she had already set to stop herself from being consumed by her own flame saved her from being blown to smithereens and burned to a crisp.

As it was, she was flung twenty feet, broke another furrow in the road when she ploughed into it and her fire was snuffed like a candle.

“Blue, what are you doing?!” Ruby threw open the door of the diner and skidded to a halt only when Granny grabbed her shoulders to stop her.

“What should have been done a long time ago.” Blue, now that she had an audience, realised that she looked like a train wreck.

She straightened her shirt and sweater, dusted her skirt off and flipped her ragged hair out of her eyes. She didn’t kill the magic from her wand that still snared Regina.

“You can’t!” Ruby snarled. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“She maimed King George.” Blue moved to stand over a coughing Regina, trying to pry her face out of the road.

“So he wouldn’t kill me!” Ruby struggled against Granny’s hold, not noticing that the old woman’s eyes had flashed silver. “She could have killed him, but she didn’t. She let him live.”

“This time. Just. He might well have died from his injuries.” Blue reached down and gripped Regina by the hair, hauling her up onto her knees. Just the right beheading height.

“I knew what I was doing.” Regina’s voice was a hoarse croak. “Evidently more so than you do, you’ve just declared war on the wolves.”

“Sacrifices must be made.” Blue’s voice was cool.

“The Charmings will never forgive you, the dwarves will turn. No more faerie dust,” Regina rasped, warming to her subject, “heh, you’ve just crippled your entire race.”

“The Charmings are not irreplaceable.” Blue spoke mildly and Regina snarled.

She would not lose David, Granny and Ruby. Not to this bitch. Not to anyone.

“You really think you can take on the entire town?”

“Do you really think I cannot?” Blue wrenched her head back, her wand reeling in the rope of the spell until it dug into the soft skin just under Regina’s chin. “Truly?”

“Not while I still live.”

“Not a condition you shall suffer from much longer, I assure you.” Blue smiled but there was no human emotion to it. Mimicry. Nothing more and nothing less.

“Let. Her. _GO._ ” Ruby’s wolf was rising.

Her eyes were glowing gold, there seemed to be too many teeth in her mouth, her lips had turned black and the skin over her face seemed too tight. She prowled down the steps of the diner, Granny’s attempts to hold her back giving way to the newly strengthened wolf in Ruby.

“This is none of your concern, Red. You can give up fealty to the witch with no repercussion from me.” Blue spoke to Ruby calmly, she had no idea. She had no idea that Ruby could take on wolf form without the moon.

Ooh, what a nasty shock that was going to be. Ruby grinned.

“Funny, I was gonna say something similar to you. Let my sister go and I won’t eat your heart from your chest so she can crush it.” Ruby’s teeth were definitely too sharp now, her eyes burning like coals. Her voice was too big for her and she was taller, her hands curling into claws.

“What has she done to you?” Blue turned, the wand dropping from Regina’s throat and that was all Ruby had been waiting for.

She shifted mid-air. Her human shape melting and reforming into the wolf which –if at all possible- seemed bigger than usual. Crimson magic bled from her eyes in vapour trails which tracked her movements and she tackled Blue head on.

The air rushed from the faerie’s lungs with a whoosh and she was sent flying under Ruby’s weight. The wolf snarled and raved like a beast possessed and her huge jaws closed around Blue’s arm and shook. Hard.

Blue cursed and struggled but –even maddened- Ruby wasn’t trying to kill her. Not even hurt her really. Massive teeth gouged into her sleeve and scraped her skin, but Blue knew that Ruby could have sheared off her arm at the elbow with a single clip of her teeth had she been of a mind to.

Regina was knocked off her feet both by Ruby’s linebacker impersonation and the rope of magic around her neck. It stretched away from the wand so she wasn’t dragged along for the ride but she was still toppled to the ground and scraped over the road.

She scrambled at the noose of magic around her neck but it was useless. It was pure faerie magic, a manifestation of Blue’s power cinched about Regina’s throat. Regina cursed. Fluently and at length.

“Get. OFF!”

Ruby yelped as she was sent skyward, a mushroom cloud of magic blasting out of Blue and forcing the wolf away. Ruby hit the road poorly, something cracking in her.

She tried to regain her feet but she yelped again and collapsed to the street.

“Ruby!” Regina threw herself to her feet, forgetting about the magical noose restraining her and choked when her feet kicked out from under her and the rope dragged her back down to the ground.

“You forced me to do this.” Blue regained her feet, yanking at her wand and flipping Regina onto her back with the magic burning around her neck. “You made me hurt her, my friend, my ally.”

“ _ **GET AWAY FROM MY GIRLS**_!”

Regina’s eyes widened and she twisted to see what had spoken. What she saw, had she not already been on the ground, would have floored her.

Granny descended the steps of the diner and the magic crackled around her like a stormcloud. Her eyes sparked silver just as Ruby’s had red and she…she shifted.

“Impossible!” Blue began to hurriedly back away from the massive wolf that hit the street on all fours.

A shining silver grey wolf. Molten eyed and more silver magic pouring from its eyes and gusting from its mouth, the monster werewolf advanced on Blue, black lips peeled back over knife like teeth and a growl that shook the street rumbling from within its chest.

Werewolves were always large, Ruby and Regina were the size of ponies in their wolf shapes, but it would seem that wolves got bigger as they got older and Granny was nearly a hundred years old. A wolf the size of a rhino with all of its maternal instinct focussed to a razor’s edge and aimed at Blue.

It couldn’t last, it couldn’t possibly last. Regina did the numbers in her head and they came back a very uncomfortable and definite negative. The mass differential and Granny’s age…the strain might very well kill her within seconds if Blue didn’t get there first. The stress on her heart alone should have felled her through the simple act of shifting at such an age but it would seem that Granny either didn’t know or didn’t care that matriarch wolves weren’t supposed to be able to change after a certain age.

She roared, a deafening sound that spat sparks and flames of silver magic, and launched herself.

Regina tensed, if she killed Blue, it was over. If she took the lead faerie’s head, that would be it. War would be declared and the other faeries, without Blue to keep them in check –as odd as that sounded- could become even more dangerous than they already were.

But Granny wasn’t after Blue.

She fell on the magic tying her and Regina together with a ferocity that Ruby could only hope to aspire to. Her jaws crunched down onto the blue rope and she clawed at it with meat hook talons. She savaged the magic, uncaring that it set her mouth to smoking and flickered blue flames over her fur.

Not even all the force Blue could muster could hope to hold up under that. The spell snapped like a twig and Regina summoned her magic in that single instant. She surged to her feet and threw out her arm. She sent Blue flying, to give her time and then hurried to Granny.

“Turn back!” She gripped the wolf by the face and turned her to look into her glowing silver eyes. “Turn back before you kill yourself.”

Granny, seeing that Regina could defend herself once more, sagged. Her eyes rolled back in her head, the magic washed over her, and she collapsed into Regina’s arms in human form. Regina wasted no time in shouldering her weight and struggling over to Ruby’s side.

Another hurried burst of magic and the ribs that had been cracked by Blue’s attack healed. Ruby’s eyes snapped open on a snarl and she flashed to her feet, teeth bared.

“Calm down, everything’s fine. I need you to take Granny to Rachel. She shifted, she turned, I don’t know how, but she needs a doctor.”

Ruby whined and shifted. She caught Granny when Regina handed her over.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” Regina’s voice was grim. “Nobody hurts me and mine.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” Regina nodded shortly. “I’m not going to kill her.” Though she might sorely wish Regina had by the time the sorceress was done with her.

“You’re sure?”

“See to Granny.” Regina said instead. “Find David. I want this bitch arrested for assault, breach of the peace, pissing me off and anything else that might occur to me.”

“Go to it, Regina.” Ruby grinned with a lot of teeth and not much smile. She scooped Granny up off the street and then disappeared. A blur of movement all that was left in her wake.

Just in time really.

A blue fireball of magic engulfed Regina as soon as the two wolves were gone and Regina abruptly found her temper. The magic forced its way into her nose and mouth attempting to choke her again.

Regina didn’t fight it. She threw back her head, clenched her fists, and swallowed it whole. She sucked the magic down her gullet and into her body. Letting out a gusting sigh, magic plumed from between her lips. She turned to glare at Blue.

She waited for the right moment, waited for the doubt to show in the whites of the faerie’s eyes. She didn’t snuff the magic spilling from her eyes and mouth, she didn’t need to, she smiled instead.

“Well then.” Regina bared her teeth. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”

“That’s impossible. You’re allergic to faerie magic.”

“No,” Regina advanced on Blue, her hands open, her stance unthreatening in complete antithesis to her tone and the flashes of magic snapping from her teeth with every word, “I just don’t like it.”

“You can’t possibly win.”

“I’m going to break your wand.”

Blue’s eyes widened. Even the mention of it, never mind the utter surety of the intent behind the words, was enough to strike fear into her.

Without her wand, a faerie was just as crippled as if their wings had been removed. Regina wasn’t going to kill her, she was going to maim her. She was going to take her power and leave her alive to suffer the consequences. She would lose her position as leader of the faeries, lose her magic, lose everything.

“You can’t.” She raised the wand, prepared to defend herself.

Regina just smirked at her.

“I’m going to snap it over my knee like a twig.”

“Not even the Dark One can do that!”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not the Dark One, isn’t it?” Regina advanced, closer and closer and Blue began to panic.

This wasn’t the Evil Queen she knew. This was different. The maddened indiscriminate rage was no longer there. Regina wasn’t out to hurt Snow White and the world anymore, she was going to hurt Blue. All that power, all that malice, focussed on one person.

“You promised Henry you wouldn’t use magic.” Blue tried to stop her wand from shaking. She was beginning to get the inkling that she had perhaps bitten off more than she could chew.

She had been banking on Regina’s weakness to faerie magic. Certain that if she had gotten it into her it would kill her. What had Regina done to herself that the purity of faerie magic couldn’t latch onto the cancer in her soul?

“I don’t need magic.”

Blue yelped when Regina was suddenly there. She just appeared inside the faerie’s guard and Blue was sent sprawling by the vicious right to her jaw.

She let fly a mean curse and Regina backhanded it away without missing a beat. It scorched across the street and burned into the road. Blue crawled backwards, building another spell.

Regina advanced and advanced and advanced.

“They’ll turn against you if you kill me. They’ll see you for what you are.”

“I’m not going to kill you.” Regina snatched Blue up by her cheap sweater and smashed her fist into the faerie’s nose.

Blue was knocked onto her ass only to be lifted by Regina again and suffer another hammering blow to the face.

She cast wildly, staggering Regina back a step when she was forced to catch the spell and deflect it away into a street lamp. Which exploded. Regina danced back from the blast, the wind of it tearing at her clothes.

Something plinked against the road and Regina glanced down, stilling when she saw her badge lying there. The badge David had given her.

It was only then that Regina realised how she was dressed. She still wore her clothes of the night before. Tattered, scorched and dirtied, but still the uniform of the Sheriff’s office. Still the colours that marked the alliance between the Evil Queen and Prince Charming. Still the pennant of the closest thing this world had to a knight. The thing that Henry wanted to be most.

Damn it.

Regina very nearly growled.

There was nothing – _nothing_ \- she wanted more right at that moment than to trounce Blue with the beating she so sorely deserved…but she wasn’t herself anymore.

She was the deputy to the Sheriff. Officers of the law didn’t posture and show off, at least they shouldn’t, they should protect and serve. Regina might have been a crazed psychopath, she might have ruled her kingdom under a veil of fear, but she hadn’t been terrible at ruling. Not loved, but not incompetent either.

“Alright,” Regina brushed a burning ember that had landed on her shoulder to the ground, “you’ve had your fun. You’ve bloodied my nose in front of the masses and you’ve made your grievances known. Now back off.” Regina stooped and picked up her badge, pinning it to her smoking shirt.

“What? You think I’m going to stop because of that piece of tin?” Blue prowled closer and Regina noticed Ruby arriving with a windswept David.

“Not really, but I have to try.” Regina sucked in a breath and muscled her temper down. She wanted to pull the woman’s skin off and feed it to her but the cost of that might be a higher price than she was willing to pay.

“False humility ill suits you, majesty.” Blue’s tone was that same sickly sweet condescending wheedle that made Regina want to gouge out her own eyeballs. It always had.

Self-righteous little Christmas decoration.

“My ego has its own ZIP code, Blue. If I can put mine aside, surely you can. Leave now and I won’t arrest your sorry ass for wanton property destruction.” Regina’s temper was getting away from her. She had to end this soon.

“I’ll leave as soon as I’ve done what I came to do.” Blue raised her wand. “Witch, I suffer thee not to live.”

“Oh for…” Regina rolled her eyes but faltered when Daniel rounded the corner of Granny’s, coming straight from the guest house.

He was dressed in a pressed white shirt open at his neck, his hair was neatly combed, he wore a dark pair of jeans and his shoes had been polished to a high shine. He carried a bunch of red roses in his hand.

Their date.

She had forgotten with all the magic flying round. The first promise she had made to him in forty years and she’d broken it because of some blue insect with a hard on for making her life difficult. She had been bloodied, beaten, set fire to and she looked like a train wreck.

Blue looked pretty much ruffled but otherwise unharmed and that was all Daniel saw.

He took in the situation at a glance and his body tensed, the flowers dropped to the ground, his face tightened with a fierce expression and he lunged, pushing through the crowd, intent on getting to Blue before she could so much as ruffle Regina’s hair.

“No!” Regina teleported, exchanging her usual cloud of purple cloud of fanfare for a blast of sound and a corona searing flash of light.

She was behind Blue before anyone could even blink it away. Her hand manacled around Blue’s wrist, twisting it behind her back and rattling a pair of handcuffs from her belt.

Regina was fast, really fast, but Blue had been ready for her to try something. Of _course_ Regina would teleport into her blind spot. She had already been turning before the flashbang of Regina’s spell could destroy her vision and she swung wildly with her wand.

Regina screamed when the tapered point of the crystal rod jammed into her neck. Regina staggered back, the wand tearing from Blue’s grip.

Regina clapped her hand to the wand now sticking out the meat of her neck, her blood was scalding against her fingers and she fell on her ass in the middle of the street.

Roaring, there was a roaring in her ears.

No.

Not in her ears.

A gigantic shadow loomed over her, blocking all light from falling on her.

It was Daniel. Regina could only watch in horror.

His skin darkened, an all over body bruise, his clothes tore and shredded, light blasting from the silver scar on his chest. His mouth split, lips melting away to reveal lengthening teeth and curling fangs. His hair grew into a wild mane and a tail sprang from his back, lashing the air so quickly that it cracked like a whip. Green light spilled from his eyes like headlamps.

Regina stared, shock pouring through her. The monster loomed over Blue, nearly eight feet tall.

One gigantic clawed hand clapped over her skull, hauling her up off the ground like a doll. The other gripped both her legs in the massive span of his fingers and he gave a short yank.

Something popped, snapping, and Blue screamed.

Then he flung her away.

Across town.

The monster, for there was nothing left of Daniel now, he was gone, lost, threw back his head and roared.

Regina felt her eyes burn and she could only whisper one word.

_“Hyde.”_


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21 – First Date**

 

_**Main Street, In Hyde’s Shadow** _

 

Regina felt her heart stutter in her chest and her breath catch. Her neck craned back, her eyes wide and she gulped.

That got his attention.

He had been turned away from her so all she could see was the mountain of his back. The shaggy mop of hair that tangled down over the stripped lines of his muscles.

He turned to her, always so fluid, so graceful.

She had forgotten, crows take her, but she had forgotten how overpowering he was.

There was no fat on him. At all. His skin –coal black, rough to the stroke one way and sleek the other- was taut over the very fibres of his rippling muscles. They bunched and moved like liquid metal giving the impression of grace and power, of unstoppable movement, even at rest.

He was huge, gigantic, over seven feet tall. He was built something like a Spanish Fighting Bull. Massive shoulders, a long lean waist, powerful legs. His arms were slightly too long to be proportionate, bottom heavy like a gorilla with virtually no wrist to speak of. No slimming of the muscle between the forearm thicker than Regina’s thigh and the long and surprisingly graceful fingers of his hands. The tips of the razor sharp bear claws that crowned each finger glinted like steel in the light and Regina knew they were just as sharp.

He stalked towards her deliberately, each clawed foot set silently down onto the road despite his massive bulk and vast weight. The only sound from him was the whisper quiet rasp of his tail slinking over the ground. He had a huge tail, a heavy whip of muscle and bone to balance the span of his deep chest and bullish shoulders. It was prehensile. He had been fond of coiling it about any part of her he could reach.

Also the necks of people he wished to break.

His hair was a black tangle that fell about his face, just making him appear wilder. More hair spread across his chest, arrowing down over the cobbled muscles of his stomach to…Regina desperately noticed there was hair on his arms and legs too.

“Ah, there you are, my love.” Hyde spoke and a shiver went through her.

She had forgotten, or made herself forget, even his voice. It was beautiful. Deep and resonant, rolling over her like a wave and making something hot and female quiver deep in her stomach. Regina pressed her lips together and tried to steel herself against him.

Yanking Blue’s wand out of her neck helped. She saw his eyes glint at the sight and scent of her blood, but she was already sealing the wound closed with a palm full of magic. The sting of the wound, the burn of the healing and the alien throb of the magic in the wand did a lot to ground her, to distract her from his overwhelming presence.

“As are you.” She forced herself to speak without her teeth rattling together.

Regina accepted his hand when he offered it to her. Her slim fingers looking childlike and fragile in comparison to the talons that so gently curled around her, and let herself be pulled to her feet. With no better ideas, Regina stuffed the wand into her back pocket. Even had she wanted to use it, learning how in a duel with Hyde would not go well. Best to keep it out of the way until she could find some use for it.

A letter opener maybe.

If she survived long enough to ever receive letters again, that is.

She stepped away from him just as quickly as he released her and dusted down her clothes, aware of how battered and tempting she would already look to him. She could not appear the victim –prey- for even a second with him. All she had to do was bide her time long enough for David to get there.

She was intensely aware of a crowd gathering, of more fodder for Hyde’s cannon, brought by the fireworks of Regina and Blue’s fight and hooked by the sight of the monstrous Hyde. It was coming up for lunch, people had been on their way to Granny’s anyway. More would be coming. Too many, too many potential victims, but Regina and David had spoken of this. He knew what to do. He’d have to leave the people to gather so as not to tip off Hyde but…damn it.

She hadn’t expected it to be _the_ Hyde to come back. She had thought a shade of him, a ravening monster, the darkness of Daniel’s baser self given form. Not this Hyde, not her Hyde, not the one that had very nearly killed her. Not the one that was too smart for her own good.

“Do not act surprised, my queen. I know you awaited my return.”

Regina’s breath hitched at the sound of that voice. It was like melted chocolate pouring over her. Rich, dark, and delicious. She shook herself out of it and studied his face, trying to get over her reaction and see the monster. Willing herself to be repulsed, to forget that this… _thing_ had been Daniel. She needed to see him as a beast before she could have him slain. She couldn’t afford to hesitate.

It didn’t work.

His face was just as terrifying as the rest of him but still starkly stunning. The features sharp, everything drawn forward slightly into an almost muzzle. His nose was convex in profile, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut paper and his mouth, that terrible grin, stretching almost from one pointed ear to the other. He didn’t have lips, not in the conventional sense, so all of his many –many- teeth were on display, glinting like pearls. Fangs curled out of his mouth, like those of a Chinese foo dog.

He was male distilled and given form. All the dark, hairy, terrifying bits of a man cobbled together with malice, varnished in ferocity and tempered in a raw and gaping hunger that yawned to swallow anything in its path.

“Stunned by my presence, I see.” Hyde used magic to speak –or science- the same thing he used to transform back and forth at will. It was how he circumvented the distinct lack of lips.

“I suspected.” Regina gathered herself. “I didn’t know until this moment.”

“Ah, the anticipation must have been deadly.” Hyde rumbled in a deep chuckle that Regina felt vibrate through her bones and the street beneath her feet.

So powerful. So damn powerful. She found it difficult to fathom that she had ever beaten him. Even with her Blackguard.

“Well?” Hyde spread his massive arms, his cat green eyes burning down at her. “Am I to be left cold and unadorned or shall you clothe me as you once did?”

Regina pressed her lips together and waved her hand. Magic bloomed and dressed him in the clothes he preferred. A black dinner suit of a Victorian design, tailored to fit his oddly proportioned form, sans the shoes for he hated them. The tip of his heavy tail twitched back and forth like a watching cat’s as he prowled closer to her.

She didn’t have enough eyes, she was trying to watch him and the crowd at the same time and –just as the arrival of David riding Ruby’s ginormous wolf form sent a thrill of hope through her- terror curdled her insides when Henry’s head appeared out of the door of the diner.

Ruby rumbled a snarl and David swung down off her back. Regina deliberately turned her back on Hyde, planting herself between him and them and shook her head. Ruby whined but Regina didn’t move. Hyde would tear her apart. Even a wolf that had so completely mastered the change as Ruby…no, Hyde would have a fur stole to go with his dinner suit if Regina let Ruby wade in.

Regina glanced deliberately at Henry and Ruby flashed back into her human form, going to her ‘nephew’ without hesitation.

“Much better.” Hyde tugged at the lapels and rolled his shoulders with a terrifying display of casual power. He circled in front of her, bringing her attention squarely back to him, looked down at her and arched a brow. “This is what you’re wearing?”

Regina glanced down at herself. Her version of a deputy’s uniform. Tattered, torn and bloodied now due to Blue’s shenanigans. She tensed when she realised what he wanted.

Another burst of magic and she wore his favourite dress, the one he had repeatedly threatened to remove with his teeth. She had made it from the carcass of a dragon he had slain with his bare hands for her.

The bodice was made of the gold embedded hide of the dragon’s belly. The jewels and coins that had been grown into the dragon’s flesh from centuries wallowing in its hoard still embedded in that soft leather. The corset was ribbed with fragments of the dragon’s ribs and it showed off her cleavage to a truly staggering effect. The neckline plunged to take advantage of it and was lined with the black spikes of the dragon’s talons in a wordless warning not to touch.

Its polished teeth formed a choker around her throat offset by the crimson horns ripped from the beast’s skull flared in a huge collar to halo her head. Strung together with carved bone beads that rattled quietly with every one of her tight breaths.

Her shoulders were bare though her arms were covered nearly completely by red dragon hide gloves. The skirt itself was formed from the dragon’s wing as if had been curled around her. Softened to bend and flow like silk, the shining red scales on the pinions conserving her modesty –just barely- around her hips. The translucent membrane of the wings clearly showed off the shape of her legs and the dragon hide boots that reached mid-thigh beneath.

Her lips were painted such a dark red they were nearly black, her eyes framed with sharp lines of kohl and gold dust. The dragon’s eyes –turned to amber- dangled from her ears as gaudy earrings. Everywhere the dress touched her, where Hyde could see the join between leather and skin, she had flushed with red. To make it seem like the leather was still bloody when she had pulled it on.

Regina clenched her jaw at her younger self’s stupidity.

She’d had no idea the fire she’d been courting by offering such a temptation to Hyde. It was a wonder he hadn’t taken her by force and then eaten her from the crotch up.

Still, she needed a distraction and she was more than happy to play the part if it gave David the time to find the biggest gun he could to blow Hyde’s head off. A cannon preferably.

“Now what?”

“Dinner.” Hyde lifted his head to study the gathering crowd, picking a likely specimen no doubt.

“Done.” Regina waved at the street and a banquet sprang up.

The table, not a very large one because he never wanted to be too far apart from her, held two silver covered dishes, a carafe of wine and was flanked by high backed chair at either end. Braziers roaring with leaping flames on each side.

“Very well.” Hyde sounded slightly disappointed but reached out to her and settled his massive hand at her lower back.

Regina tried not to scream in terror at the touch. Part of her howling that he was going to tear her apart, the other part urging to kill him, quick and clean and hopefully before he could shear her head off with those claws of his.

Instead, he pulled out her chair for her and she numbly sat whilst he moved around and took the opposite throne. He lifted his cover for his dish and –while he couldn’t smile effectively because he was always grinning- his eyes seemed to smirk.

“Rare, just the way I like it.” Hyde dropped the silver dome of the cover to the street with a clang and Regina flinched badly.

She spirited her own away with a nervous flicker of magic from her fingers. She glanced over at the crowds now lining the street and hoped David would hurry.

 

 

Across the street, David was rapidly losing any sanity he might have shored up for this whole Hyde situation.

“Gods DAMN it, we’re not ready.” His voice was hoarse with worry and he paced back and forth, watching Regina try to control Hyde.

He watched them talk, watched her summon some clothes for the monster, warp her own into a, well, stunning dress and then conjure a freaking dinner table for them both to have a date apparently.

“You were expecting this?!” Ruby waved her hand at the show taking up Main Street and David shot her a look.

“There was always a chance this was going to happen. Regina knew it when Daniel was brought back, she came to me and we planned accordingly I…we didn’t plan on her being here for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hyde’s taken over, he’s manifested.” David shot a glance at Ruby. “Daniel’s not coming back.”

Ruby’s eyes widened.

“But she loves him!” The words blurted from her before she could stop herself, her entire being rebelling against what her head was telling her David meant. “You mean, you’ve got to…right in front of her? AGAIN?!”

“Hyde’s dangerous.” David scrubbed a hand through his short hair and pressed his lips together. He shook his head helplessly.

“So is she!” Ruby threw an arm out to indicate Regina. “David this will break her. Shatter her. She will NEVER come back from this.”

“I know.” David looked down at the ground and huffed out a breath. “Which is why she made me make a second promise.”

Ruby went cold all over. She shook her head wildly.

“No.” She sliced her hand through the air as if to draw a line under her words. “No. She’s our friend. She is my sister and –while I don’t really get why that’s become so important to me in about five minutes- she is getting BETTER.”

“And she knows all of that will stop if she has to watch him die again. If she sees him _murdered_ again. You don’t get it, Ruby. She is SO much more powerful than she was in the Enchanted Forest. She can do things now that even the Dark One is afraid to try! If she goes insane again she will take all of us with her and it won’t be to a cushy world like this, she’ll take us straight to hell. I will NOT let that happen to her!” David’s chest heaved and he hurried to explain. “She knows Hyde, from back in the day, they were…friends for a time.”

“That thing?” Ruby looked over and sucked in a breath, she went very still and her eyes paled, turning gold. “Oh. My. God.”

“What?” David looked wildly over, expecting Regina to have been put on the menu or something but she sat with the monster, eating daintily. “What is it?”

“The smell. His scent.” Ruby took an involuntary step forward and David grabbed her arm.

“Red!”

Ruby snapped out of it and shook her head wildly like she was trying to shake water from her ears.

“Holy crap, no wonder she’s wearing that dress.” Ruby dragged her hands down over her face and tried to muster her control.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“David, he smells _delicious_.” Ruby looked over at him, equal parts hunger and horror on her face. “It’s…staggering. I feel like someone just punched me in the god damn ovaries.” Ruby folded forward and caught herself on her knees, panting through her mouth.

“Well that’s…not helpful.” David fought the urge to tear his hair out. “This guy is bad news, Ruby. According to Regina, he’s the real deal. The original villain. It took half of her Blackguard to bring him down.”

“That guy?” Ruby lifted her head to look at him, a flush high over her cheeks.

She wasn’t handling this pheromone kick to the head very well at all. She could only imagine the nerves of steel that Regina would have to have in order to control herself so close to the beast.

“Killed off half of the legendary Blackguard? The guys that would get kicked out of Mossad for unnecessary roughness?”

“You never wondered why there were so few people loyal to the Evil Queen in Storybrooke?”

“I mostly thought it was because she was evil and crazy and didn’t give dental.” Ruby managed to straighten and tried to focus on the conversation.

“They were fanatics, Ruby, loyal to the death. That animal over there is the reason most of them are dead. According to Regina, he should have died a hundred times over and he didn’t. He kept coming and she nearly killed herself ripping his heart out and now he’s here. In Storybrooke. In our home.”

“But…we can’t kill him without killing Daniel.”

“I know.” Charming was staring across the street at the bizarre dinner scene spread out before them and his face was a mask of pain.

He didn’t want to do this. Regina was his friend. It seemed impossible that she could be, but she was. He had grown to care for her, grown to like Daniel too and had been genuinely happy for them both now that they finally seemed to be finding one another again and now…now he was going to have to put a bullet in both of them to save his town.

“We can’t do that.” Ruby spoke quietly.

“I know that too.”

“So…what do we do?”

David gusted out a sigh and shook his head.

“I don’t know. Look for a third option.”

Neither of the adults, focussed as they were on plots of murder and mayhem, noticed one ten year old boy sidle away into the crowd with a distinct look of determination on his face. The same kind of determination that had beaten the odds and the Evil Queen and broken the curse.

Henry figured he’d done enough to the Evil Queen. Now it was time to do something for her.

 

Back at the dinner table, Regina picked at her food and tried to indulge in some of the conversation Hyde was sending her way. They had passed the first few minutes with inane chatter.

Hyde was commenting on the town, apparently not needing much input from her, and related to her how he had been watching through Daniel’s eyes for quite some time. So he already knew a lot of the names and faces milling around them.

Regina tensed. Impressive considering how tightly strung she already was.

So, basically, he knew exactly who to kill first if Regina crossed him. She knew, after Daniel, Henry would be his first target. She’d have to spirit him away and hope…hope with all the powers of hell that her son hadn’t just turned up at the _dinner table!_

“Hi.” Henry appeared at Hyde’s side.

The silver goblet of wine in Regina’s hand crumpled.

“Henry.” The word choked out of her and she made an aborted move to rise. Stilled by Hyde shooting a sideways glance at her.

“Hello.” Hyde rumbled down at the boy, who looked up at him with a friendly smile.

“I’m Henry Mills.” Henry stuck out his hand to the beast and Regina felt her gut clench in a metallic and visceral fear.

“Mister Hyde.” Hyde engulfed Henry’s tiny hand in his own massive paw and Regina’s hand gripped the table so tightly her knuckles cracked and whitened. “This is him. Your son.” Hyde looked at Regina.

“Adopted son.” Regina tried to be indifferent, to downplay the importance of the boy to her.

“Do not lie.” Hyde said mildly. “You love him. You would die for him. Sweet little tyke.” Lifting that massive hand again, claws glinting, Hyde ruffled Henry’s hair with them.

A small and high pitched sound eked out of Regina’s throat and it was all that escaped of the horrified scream battering to be free of her chest. He could have scalped him, could have crushed his skull like a sparrow egg between thumb and forefinger, could have plucked out his eyes and eaten them like sweetmeats.

_Where_ was David with that elephant rifle?

“What do you really want?” Regina went for broke. “Why are you really here?”

“For you, of course.” Hyde scooted his chair back a little and reached out to Henry, spanning his chest with his massive hands, and lifting the boy to sit on one of his knees.

Again, Regina barely halted her mad scramble to be between her son and the monster that had been her true love. Torn didn’t really begin to cover it. She didn’t want Daniel to die. That was the understatement of the universe, but neither did she want any harm to come to Henry.

Hyde lifted his steak knife –threatening Regina with a coronary as he did- and sliced into the blue fillet she had conjured for him. He cut off a neat little piece, skewered it on the blade and offered it to Henry.

“No thank you.”

“Really? You refuse me?” Hyde tilted his head, seemingly more curious than angered.

“The blood makes me feel icky.” Henry said as if in apology.

Hyde shrugged and nipped the bit of meat off the knife to devour it himself. He stabbed one of the miniature roast potatoes on his plate, dripping with goose fat, and offered that to the lad instead.

“Thank you.” Henry accepted it and munched happily for a moment.

Hyde watched him with interest.

“So, you’re Mister Hyde?”

“I am.”

“Have you killed Daniel?”

“No.” Hyde snorted, that sense of a smirk about him again. “Precocious little thing, aren’t you?”

“So I’ve been told.” Henry accepted another potato and bit into it, stilling only momentarily at Hyde’s next words.

“A horrible quality. A trait that I ripped out of the last child that displayed it to me.”

“But not me?”

“No. You are the adopted prince. Regina’s son by choice. She loves you so fiercely she even now tries to build a spell to kill me.”

Regina froze at the other end of the table and heaved out a slow breath. She placed the steak knife back on the table by her plate and the glow of magic dulled from it.

“Mom would never kill Daniel. She loves him.” Henry assured Hyde.

“I do believe she loves you more.” Hyde watched the little queen’s reaction when he tickled his claws over Henry’s hair again.

Her jaw clenched, her hand white knuckled on the table and a sweat inched over her skin down the back of her neck. The scent of her fear was delicious.

“You wouldn’t kill Daniel, would you, mom?” Henry accepted some butter cooked carrots from Hyde next.

Regina was intensely glad that she hadn’t taken the chance of summoning poison into Hyde’s dinner and resolved to shake her son until he rattled if they lived through this.

“Daniel would gladly die to prevent harm from coming to you, Henry.” Regina forced herself to speak evenly.

“See?” Hyde spoke with a smile again. “Look how she loves. So fiercely, with everything she has. Nothing is held back. No part of her reserved. She loves you, Daniel and even this wretched little town.”

“I suppose this is where you tell me that love is weakness?” Something cold and hard crept into Regina’s voice. She felt her body begin to conform to the dress she inhabited, felt herself shift and fill it out properly. “You’ll have to do better than that to intimidate me.”

“On the contrary,” Hyde was beginning to look pleased, “I have no desire to intimidate you. Of all the worlds I have travelled to, all the men I have corrupted and the women I have shredded, you alone remain unafraid. Even with my claws around your throat, tearing into your face, you never flinched. My equal in all things, little queen. Just as dark as I and now twice as fierce for the mother’s love burning within you.”

“Nuh-uh.” Henry shook his head. “Mom’s good now. She promised to be good, to not be the Evil Queen anymore and to use magic only when she had to. She’s better that way. We’re happy now.”

“The magical dinner contradicts you, boy. Explain this to me.”

“Well, I guess she thought you were gonna wreck the town if she didn’t give you what you wanted.” Henry continued sagely. “That’s got a limit, by the way, she loves me lots and I still don’t get to do whatever I want all the time.”

Hyde blinked at him, thrown a moment.

“Such courage, boy. I’ve known grown men, seasoned soldiers, to wet their combinations in my presence. Is it bravery or stupidity that has you so unruffled?”

“It’s faith.” Henry smiled at Regina who returned it a little weakly.

There was something wrong with her, she was fighting something. Henry filed it away but turned back to Hyde.

“She’d fling you into the sun before she let you hurt me. She can do it too. She made this whole town and cursed an entire world full of people because somebody hurt _Daniel_ , whatchya think she’s gonna do if you turn up and hurt both the people she loves?” Henry leaned in close to Hyde and asked in an almost whisper. “So, Mister, are YOU brave or stupid?”

Hyde, who had leaned down to meet Henry’s gaze, blinked.

He threw back his head and laughed, not noticing the huff of relief that Henry let out and the terrified glare Regina sent his way.

He was grounded. If they lived through this. He was grounded. For _ever_.

“I like you, boy. So fierce, just like your mother.”

“I suppose you’re not completely evil.” Henry allowed, slipping back into his unflappable precocious self.

“Oh, do not let my manners fool you, boy. I’d eat this entire town if it suited my purposes.”

“Which are?” Regina swirled her wine in her repaired goblet.

She was sinking, she could feel it. The Evil Queen was rising. The parts of her that remembered Hyde, that had been… _intrigued_ by him. The idiot parts that had made this stupid dress. If there was one thing she loathed most about her Evil Queen self, it was how she was so damn STUPID.

Regina needed her strength, her confidence and fearlessness to bolster that which she already had. She needed that part to play but she couldn’t surrender to it and that was where the real danger came from.

“Your heart, love. What else?”

“A little tit for tat?” Regina arched a brow and sipped her wine. “Sorry to disappoint, but it’s currently in use. You’ll have to find someone else to massacre.”

Regina was running the numbers in her head. If she moved right, did it right, she might be able to get between Henry and Hyde quickly enough. She’d have to be careful though, pushing Henry away too quickly would snap him like a twig. She’d accept broken bones like an arm or a leg, those would heal, but she’d try to cushion his skull and spine if she could.

She mattered very little in the grand scheme of things. If Hyde eating her heart bought David the time he needed to make his shot –which he had to be putting off for Henry’s sake by now- then she’d take her fate as it came so long as the monster shared it.

“No.” Hyde scowled. “Why does everyone assume I want them dead?”

“It might have something to do with being hip deep in corpses most of the time.” Regina pointed out blandly.

“I haven’t killed anyone today, have I?”

Henry’s head was swinging back and forth as he watched the match. Fascinated and a little scared but confident his mom wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

This…man, Mister Hyde, was super scary. Those teeth were huge and looked like they could bite Henry in half with a single munch and his mom looked a lot like the Evil Queen but he could see her in there still. Hiding and frightened, but waiting to rescue Henry when she could.

She was going to be so mad at him. He doubted he was going to see any desserts for the rest of the year, but he couldn’t let David and Ruby try to kill Daniel. He hadn’t given up on his mom’s happy ending, even if she had.

“Oh, congratulations. I shall have to get you a medal.”

“You are hardly one to talk.” Hyde snapped at her with startling clips of his sharp teeth.

“Perhaps you should talk less and say more then.”

“Fine, I want what he has.”

“Me?” Henry snapped his head up to look at Hyde. He was ignored.

“Your love, your heart, he has it and I want it.”

“What?” Regina could only stare at him.

“You heard.” Hyde looked like he was rapidly losing patience. “Is it so bizarre a request? Is everyone not deserving of love?”

“What?!”

“I have travelled to many worlds, seen many things and done even more but I have never loved nor been loved. I want to. With you. You are worthy of me.”

“Uh…what?” Regina was completely at a loss.

She had known, back in the Enchanted Forest, that Hyde held a certain interest for her. He wanted to conquer her, like he did everything else, he wanted to own her, but she had never thought that he genuinely believed that he could love her.

“You wanna date my mom?” Henry squinted up at Hyde.

“Does the notion displease you?” Hyde looked amused. Whether at the prospect of annoying Henry or not was unclear.

“Well, I think Daniel might be pretty annoyed.” Henry’s mouth twisted as if the thought had just occurred to him.

“Daniel would reap the same benefits as I would.” Hyde’s leer was unmistakable.

“What kinda benefits?” Henry frowned. There was something in the way Hyde had spoken, Henry was missing something.

“Enough.” Regina’s voice cut through whatever Hyde was about to say about the apparent benefits of her loving/dating/whatever-ing him. “It’s not that easy.”

“It seems to be.” Hyde traced the line of Henry’s profile with one huge talon and Regina tried not to gulp loudly enough for him to hear. “You love Daniel as easily as you do breathe, the same with the boy. You are a natural. It can’t be too hard to love one more person.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Regina tried to keep her patience but the terror was eating into her.

Henry seemed completely oblivious that he sat on the knee of a monster that had eaten more people than Henry had eaten hot dinners.

“Nonsense.” Hyde lifted a hand and flicked the notion away as he would a bothersome fly.

“Evil is not loved!” Regina surged to her feet, her hands clapping down onto the polished wood of the table, her nails punching into the lacquered wood even through the material of her leather gloves. Her chest heaved, nearly breaking the dam of her corset and she realised her lips were peeled back over her teeth.

“ _There_ she is.” Hyde all but purred.

Regina straightened, trying to silence the war drums in her head. Every inch of her skin contracted with every beat of her pounding heart. She couldn’t hear anything except the roar in her ears and feel the prescient sensation of plunging her hand into someone’s chest and ripping, ripping, _ripping_.

Regina closed her eyes and sucked in a calming breath. She pried her fingers from within the table top and forced her legs to fold, coiling herself back down into her chair. She kept her eyes closed until she had thrown the Evil Queen –hissing and spitting- back into her cage.

When she opened them again, she found Hyde watching her with amusement and Henry trying not to look as frightened as he now felt.

It was that which steadied her. Hyde had always made her worse. Flattering her with revelling in her debasement, rejoicing in her sadism, goading her into bigger and badder things with every one of his visits until…until she’d realised she was losing control. There was something about him, something about the magic or science or whatever that made him so evil, that spoke to that same darkness in her and coaxed it to the surface.

She could feel it, circling like shark, edging closer and ever closer to the surface. Her little outburst could have cost Henry his life had Hyde taken it the wrong way. The fin breaking the water. She had to be careful.

Henry saved her. As bad as Hyde was for her, as much darkness he could draw from her, Henry brought out the opposite. She _wanted_ to be good around Henry, for Henry.

Henry would always win…and she could never –ever- let Hyde know that.

“But evil evidently can love.” Hyde nodded to her and then to Henry, looking pleased with himself.

“Believe me when I tell you that it is torture for it to be one-sided.” Regina’s voice was cold and she muscled down her flinch when something stricken passed over Henry’s face. She picked up her wineglass with a hand that barely shook and sipped. “Didn’t you want to love and be loved?”

“Hmm.” Hyde frowned, combing his claws over Henry’s hair again.

Henry was seriously beginning to wonder what was so damn fascinating about his hair. His mom smoothed it, Emma ruffled it, everybody seemed to pet him on it and now he had a Victorian monster combing it with his bear claws.

“I must be good in order to be loved?”

“In…theory.” Regina was entranced by the glint of those claws so close to her son’s so delicate skin.

Hyde could tear through people, and a great many things stronger, like they were tissue paper. Henry would be even less trouble. Hyde could break him with a casually careless movement.

“Well, that is hardly fair.” Hyde dropped his hand onto the carved arm of his chair and Regina felt lightheaded from relief. “I cannot help what I am. I was made to be evil. How can I be evil for doing what is in my nature?”

“I don’t know.” Regina actually felt bad for him in that moment.

He genuinely didn’t understand. She had always believed that evil was not born, it was made, but –for Hyde- he was both. A product of a cruel experiment trying to split the darkness from the human soul so that it could be safely disposed of.

She didn’t think there was anything Hyde could be other than a monster.

“You could try not hurting people.” Henry spoke suddenly and Hyde looked down at him. He had quite forgotten that the boy was even there.

“What?”

“Well, hurting people is nearly always bad. Maybe if you stopped doing it, it would probably make you a lot more good, gooder, better.” Henry decided after a moment.

“But I like to hurt people.” Hyde frowned at Henry.

“Have you tried being nice instead? Maybe you’ll like that more.”

Hyde made a face.

“Don’t screw your face up. How do you know you don’t like it if you’ve never tried it?”

Regina, had she not been on the verge of a terror induced coronary, would have laughed. He had sounded a lot like her right then.

“Why should I be nice?” Hyde said it with the same vitriol that most people reserved for cleaning something off the bottom of their shoes. “What would be in it for me?”

“Well, if you’re nice to people, they tend to be nicer to you.” Henry shrugged. “Mom started being nice and everybody doesn’t completely hate her now.”

Regina managed a smirk when he pointed over at her. Hyde arched a brow at her, as if to ascertain that Henry was serious. Regina shrugged a shoulder and nodded. She remembered being just as mystified at the concept but had been desperate enough to try anyway.

“I am a monster, boy. People do not like monsters.”

“Monsters are kinda cool.” Henry smiled and shrugged. “I still think you should give being nice a try, people round here might surprise you.”

“I do not even know how.” Hyde huffed annoyance, growing frustrated with the conversation.

“We-ell…you share a body with Daniel, don’t you?” Henry asked innocently and Regina went on high alert. “I mean, he’s not going to disappear on you, is he?”

“No.” Hyde growled. “Unfortunately, this will always primarily be _his_ body. I am the one that must sleep for a time.”

Regina moved carefully to rest her chin on her hand and closed her eyes briefly. The relief that washed over her was so intense she could have slithered from her chair and flopped insensate onto the ground. Daniel was alive, he was still in there, Hyde was going to recede and –when he did- she could find a way to make sure that he never _ever_ got out again.

“Then it’s easy,” Henry clapped his hands on his knees, “Daniel’s one of the nicest guys I know. If you can hear him, then you could try listening to him. I mean, if you’re about to do something and Daniel starts yelling in your head, you probably shouldn’t do it.”

“Why should I listen to the weakling? He died in front of your mother, broke her, cost her a lifetime of happiness. Had he been anything of a real man, he…” Hyde trailed off when he realised that sharp pain in his ear was a steak knife pinning it back against the wood of the chair.

The silver handle shivered from the force that had thudded it into the wood and blood slid along the blade to drip from the handle and onto Hyde’s suit.

“Don’t.” Regina sat opposite him, one hand still propping up her chin and the other outstretched across the table. Magic crackled in her eyes and he had never seen her so angry. “Do not speak of things beyond your ken.”

Hyde jerked his head, tearing his ear off the knife without a blink and studied her. This was new. The queen he had known had been dark and bloodthirsty, certainly, but there had always been a kind of levity, of horrid glee, to it. Now, she was deadly serious.

He could feel the anger and the magic crackling within her and was rocked by the absolute certainty that she would kill him without hesitation…and this time she wouldn’t need half her army to do it either.

“Mom?” Henry sounded worried and Regina’s dark eyes darted to his.

Her entire being softened and she dropped her hand, smiling for him.

“Everything’s alright.” She nodded to him with encouragement. “Tell Mister Hyde your plan.”

Henry hesitated a moment, watching his mother for any further signs of regression and then turned back to Hyde but Hyde spoke before he could. To Regina.

“I am sorry.”

Regina frowned, confused.

“Daniel…thought I should apologise.” Hyde admitted after a long moment.

“You can really hear him?” Regina straightened in her chair and Hyde scowled at the evident relief that coursed through her.

“Oh yes.” Hyde grumbled. “He has been cursing me rather fluently since we sat down to dinner. He has quite the vocabulary too. I have learned new words.”

“So?” Hyde looked down at Henry. “Are you gonna try it? Try being nice?”

“If I always do what Daniel wants, how shall I ever get what I want?”

“Well, if you’re good, Daniel won’t have to worry about letting you out, will he?”

Hyde’s focus turned inward for a moment and he snorted.

“I have just been quite forcibly informed otherwise.”

A flash of consternation cut across Henry’s features. This was never going to work if Daniel didn’t play along.

“He’s mad at you. Look at what you did.” Henry waved at the street. “You turned up and beat up the Blue Faerie before he did, you took over his body to do it, you get to wear the fancy suit and go on a date with my mom and everybody thought you were gonna destroy the town. Daniel thought you were gonna hurt my mom so…he got annoyed. Good guys get really funny about people hurting their true loves.”

“Funny how?”

“Well, if he were standing here, I’m pretty sure he’d punch you in the head.”

Hyde snorted as if that prospect did not alarm him in the slightest.

“Don’t laugh it off, your ginormous teeth would be all over the street by now if Daniel were here.” Henry shrugged as if it was a harsh truth but the truth nonetheless. “You shouldn’t feel bad about it, Daniel will punch anything if he feels he’s gotta. He took on two werewolves last night. With his bare hands!” Henry threw up his hands in a ‘need I say more?’ manner.

“So…Daniel has hurt people but that is acceptable because…?”

“That’s a really complicated issue. I think it’s mainly because people like him and he’s a generally good guy. That and everybody he’s hurt has been bad.”

“That sounds somewhat biased.”

“It is!” Henry held both thumbs up and grinned. “Join Team Good Guy, we’ve got it made.”

Regina huffed a laugh at that.

“So I can still kill things, so long as I think they are bad?”

“No-o…” Henry narrowed his eyes and mulled that one over.

Regina knew who to go to if she ever had to make a deal with the devil. Henry would certainly be able to find any loopholes in any clauses that she might need to be aware of.

“They have to have a widely accepted badness.” Henry decided after a moment. “Like…you might think puppies and kittens are bad, but everybody else pretty much likes them so that’s not really okay. A giant monster tearing up the town planning to kill and eat everybody,” Henry shot a sly look at Hyde, “nobody would really mind anybody killing that.”

Hyde narrowed his eyes at Henry. Not fooled for an instant.

“You,” he decided after a moment, “are a dangerous little boy.”

“Also adorable and a good guy, so I get away with a lot.” Henry beamed at Hyde.

Hyde laughed then and it was a surprisingly rich and pleasing sound. Something flickered over his face, it might have been pain, but he rolled his massive shoulders and shook it off.

“Very well, boy. We can try it your way. For now.” Hyde spanned Henry’s ribs with his hands and set him down onto the ground. “Go to your mother.”

Henry wasted no time in scooting around the table to be hauled into Regina’s arms and subjected to a crushing hug. She pulled him away, her eyes wide and worried, scanning him for injuries and then crushed him close in another hug.

“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” Henry wheezed when she squished the air out of his lungs.

“ _So_ much trouble.” Regina agreed shakily. She loosened her hold, cupping Henry’s face in her hands and huffed out a shivering sigh of relief. She risked a glance at Hyde who watched every movement with a devouring curiosity.

“May I be excused to take him back to his grandfather?”

Hyde nodded and watched her surge to her feet, grip Henry’s hand and bodily haul him away from the table.

Henry twisted and managed to wave to Hyde, not knowing when he would see the monster again. He had to jog to keep up with his mom. Which wasn’t very fair, he thought, considering she was wearing those pointy stupid shoes of hers and a dress that she didn’t seem to be wearing so much as inhabiting.

Regina didn’t stop her fearsome stride away from Hyde until she reached David and Ruby.

“Where the hell were you?!” She hissed at David.

Her fingers were tight around Henry’s and she pulled him in front of her so she could rest her other hand on his shoulder. Allowing him to be closer to David but quite unable to loosen her grip just yet. She had never been more terrified than when he had appeared at the dinner table and spoken to Hyde as if he was just another guest of Regina’s.

“We got a little distracted when Henry seemed intent on feeding himself to your ex-boyfriend!” David snarled back.

“There’s two of you!” Regina waved at Ruby. “I’m sure between the two of you, you could have both watched the show and fetched the damn gun!”

She was trying not to yell, trying not to fly apart, but she wasn’t just wearing the dress of her former self, she’d had to wear her face a couple of times as well. Just another mask, but sometimes that mask wore her rather than the other way around.

“I couldn’t let them shoot Daniel!” Henry burst out. “He’s still in there. He can come back. Don’t you want that?”

“Of course I want that.” Regina glared down at him. “But I also seem to be the only one who is aware of exactly how dangerous Hyde is. I seem to be the only one who is rightly terrified of him. I’m scared and irrational and would like it very much if you’d all just stand here like good little subjects and take the tongue lashing you all deserve before I have a complete breakdown!”

Regina stopped, her voice having gotten a little too high for that last part and she had run out of air anyway. She panted, her shoulders and chest heaving with every breath and frowned at David when he shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to her.

Deliberately not letting his gaze wander lower than her eyes.

Regina laughed abruptly and her hold loosened a fraction on Henry.

The boy wasted no time in drawing his hand from within hers and rubbing the feeling back into his fingers. He placated her by leaning back against her and letting her hug him. He knew his mom could get crazier than usual if she didn’t have something to hold onto and he was fine being that something just now.

Despite how Henry had acted, he had actually been pretty scared of Hyde. Those teeth were even bigger up close and those claws were really mega sharp.

“Don’t be silly, David. It would clash horribly with the corset.”

David’s eyes betrayed him and dropped to examine said corset just as Regina deliberately took a deep breath. David furiously ducked his head and jerked his jacket back on without meeting her gaze again.

“You’re bad.” Ruby told Regina like she might not have realised up until now. She reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder. “You alright?”

“Yes.” Regina nodded after a moment. “I will be…as soon as Daniel comes back.”

“He’s really in there?” David lifted his head, embarrassment forgotten. “He can come back?”

“I don’t think Hyde can hold the transformation indefinitely. Back in the Enchanted Forest, I only saw him for a day or so at a time and always in that form.” Regina tilted her head back, the elaborate bone crown pointing to Hyde for a moment. “He never showed his other face to me. I think perhaps he had to sleep in his original form.”

“So we just have to knock him out?”

“Just!” Regina laughed at the innocent announcement from David. “You could drop a bomb on him and all you would do is annoy him. No. I think, if we can stall him long enough, he’ll revert back on his own.”

Regina steadied herself with a shivering breath and released her hold on Henry, pushing him towards David and anchoring him under one of David’s hands on one shoulder and Ruby’s on the other.

“Mom, you’re not going back over there.” Henry tried to stop her.

He hadn’t liked what he had seen at the dinner table. Hyde had seemed to bring out the Evil Queen and Henry believed if he wasn’t there to remind her to be his mom, she might come back just like Hyde had.

“So long as his attention is focussed on me, you’re safe.” Regina bent at the waist so she could meet Henry’s eyes at an equal height.

“You won’t be.”

“I’ll be fine, sweetheart. Hyde isn’t going to hurt me.” Not seriously. Probably. “He wants to date me, remember?”

“He wants to what?!” David looked at her wildly.

“Surely you didn’t think I was wearing this dress to show off my winning personality, Charming?” Regina straightened and frowned at him. He really was an idiot sometimes.

“You have a personality?” David snarked automatically and Regina smirked. He frowned and sobered, continuing in a lower tone so that Henry might not hear even though they still stood right next to each other. “Your cleavage is hardly a weapon of mass destruction.”

Regina threw back her head and laughed at him. She stopped when she realised he was serious.

“Honestly, Charming? Not a weapon? It is _the_ weapon.” She pointed blindly over her shoulder and into the crowd. “Even Grumpy has forgotten he hates me because of my,” Regina faltered when she realised Henry was looking at her, “dress.”

“No matter how ‘distracted’ he is, Hyde could still swallow you whole!”

“Better than me having to attempt it on him.” Regina drawled. “He is rather generously proportionate.”

David made a choked off sound of frustration and glared at her.

“Regina, this is dangerous. Daniel will never forgive me if I let you go back in there and you get hurt.”

“Which is why I need to go over there and keep Hyde mollified. I think he feeds off of negative things. Blood, death, mayhem, anger, fear…if Hyde isn’t angry at me and actively trying to kill me, Daniel will be worried still but hopefully not outright terrified and that will force Hyde to revert more quickly.” Regina met David’s eyes. “I’m goading you because I’m scared, David, not because I’m unaware of the risks.”

“I still don’t like it.” David grumbled.

“Worst comes to worst, I’ll zip over there and try and haul you out of it if I have to.” Ruby offered a wan smile.

“Hmm,” Regina nodded, “try not to sheer my arms off when you do.”

“No promises.” Ruby smirked and Regina returned it and then straightened.

“How do I look?”

David clamped his jaw shut and refused to answer that out of self-preservation.

“I dunno, kind of _Rocky Horror_ meets _Lord of the Rings_.” Ruby shrugged and stepped towards Regina. She tugged at the gloves, shimmied Regina’s skirt a little and even hoisted her bodice a little higher, throwing up her hands when it became clear that was as high as it got. “Shady lady.” Ruby shook her head but her smile was worried.

“I’m not the one that goes into heat.” Regina told her archly and the change rolled over her.

Her eyes became hooded, her spine lissom, her weight on one hip and a sultry smirk –as dangerous as it was alluring- graced her red black lips. She turned, her hips rolled, leading the motion and stalked back out onto the street, returning to the table.

David tilted his head, watching her go, and earned a slap on his chest from Ruby.

“Okay, I deserved that.” David muttered.

“It’s understandable.” Ruby shrugged. “Just don’t make a habit of it.”

“It’s gonna be pretty hard to un-see.” David confessed.

“I’m telling Sno-ow.” Ruby said in a sing-song tone.

They both laughed but it was nervous.

They were both intensely aware of how wrong this could all still go.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HALLO!
> 
> Big shout out to Vampress who gave me the heads up about making it easier to format this bad boy for posting. What would have taken me fifteen minutes of eye strain was reduced to have that. So hopefully I'll be updating on the regular again. 
> 
> Also, please keep any spoilers for the latest season on the down low as I haven't yet decided if I'll continue to watch it. I was terribly underwhelmed with the first episode and I don't know if I want to continue watching it as a series. I'll still be writing fanfiction but the show just makes me want to rage quit. 
> 
> The writing is just so damn lazy and so is the design work. If i can do better and I'm not even getting paid for it then Adam and whatshisface can sodding well buck up, get their fingers out and make an effort. 
> 
> Anyway, rant over, my friend is begging me to watch the second episode as a favour to her and not give up on it though that would require putting up with all the 'Swan Queen Moments' apparently. NEVER MIND that I'm writing a Swan Queen fic right now, mine is different and better for it. 
> 
> Also, I need to write it so I can prove a point to someone on ffnet even if they'll never know it :I
> 
> Okies, schizophrenic sounding moment over, read and love because you always do :D

**Chapter 22 – Tugged Heartstrings**

 

Hyde watched the queen approach him and grinned internally as well as externally. He could have heard the conversation had he had the attention free to do so, but Daniel was still screaming at him. 

He was getting louder, harder to ignore, he was getting stronger. The homicidal rage that had consumed Daniel when he had seen Blue attacking Regina had been just what Hyde needed in order to show his face, but that had lasted a mere irrational instant. Enough for Hyde to get out and –had he set about laying waste to the town and gorging on more fear and pain- he might have been able to stay and play with the little queen a lot longer. As it was, he was going to have to sleep again soon.

Which displeased him. 

Immensely. 

Still, her son –Henry- had given him plenty to ruminate so that would at least keep him occupied trapped within the heart inside Daniel’s chest. 

Until he got his next chance to escape that was. 

Hyde felt the tug, the fatigue, settle around him like a heavy cloak. He shook it off deliberately and rose to meet Regina. 

“All is well?” He rumbled at her and she tilted her head with that old familiar smirk of hers. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” 

“Everyone is afraid of me. Apparently that is not _nice_.” 

“Nice is overrated.” Regina shrugged a shoulder and watched him approach.

Hyde began to prowl around her, carefully avoiding the trailing train of her skirt, and enjoying the fit of the dress. Snug was a word he had always liked. She half turned her head to follow his movements but didn’t strain herself twisting to see what he was doing.

It was refreshing, this lack of fear. Oh she was afraid of him, but it was the fear made of good sense. She knew very well exactly how dangerous he was and she’d be an idiot not to fear the danger…but she wasn’t terrorised. She lost control of neither her faculties nor her bladder and that was a surprisingly rare commodity amongst his previous conquests. Then again, considering what he had done to them, perhaps it wasn’t so surprising. 

Regina was different though, his equal. Hells bells, she had even managed to kill him. 

He supposed it should be odd that he wouldn’t hold it against her. She had torn his heart from his chest, after all, but to a creature like him, that was practically foreplay. All she had really shown him was that she was just as vicious as he was, as strong as he was, as cunning. She had simply proven that she was his equal. 

She was what he had been looking for, searching for, for a long, long, time. 

“Are you going to stalk me all night?” 

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure.” Hyde rumbled a chuckle. “Nor you.” He lifted a gargantuan hand and tapped the amber dragon eye dangling from her ear. Watching it with a cat like intensity when it swung back and forth. 

Hyde ducked suddenly, bending to her, his nose suddenly buried in her neck and he stilled only when he felt the sharp tip of what he guessed to be a knife under his chin. He chuckled again. 

“Behave yourself.” She warned by no means idly. 

The question pounded out between them in time with the thudding of her pulse scant inches from his teeth. 

Could he tear her throat out before she drove that knife up into his brain?

The temptation to find out was a siren song in Hyde’s head, but there were plenty of other people to kill, Regina was special. He coveted her. Wanted her for him alone and was irked that he couldn’t get what he wanted. Any other man would be dead by now for taking her affections from him but –considering Hyde now shared said man’s flesh- that plan had hit something of a snag.

“Never.” Hyde’s breath gusted hot against the silken skin of her neck. Her choker of dragon’s teeth barred his way and, with a slice of his sharp tongue, he snapped the necklace and sent the bones clattering to the street. 

Her chin tucked a little, looking down to track the scattered teeth’s progress and then her eyes met his. 

They were so close, they were sharing each other’s air. She did smell divine and he knew his fascination with her scent was not one sided. Her pupils had dilated until her eyes were almost entirely black, a flush was crawling up the throat he practically held in his jaws and he lifted a huge hand, settling it against her chest. 

Her breath caught and he could feel her heart, so much smaller than his but no less powerful, kicking against her ribs as if trying to get closer to his touch. 

Hyde’s eyes smiled again. 

She hadn’t lowered the knife. She rotated it against his chin, her tongue tracing over her teeth. 

“Whatever am I to do with such a disobedient subject?” Her voice was quiet and throaty. Almost a purr.

“Whatever you wish.” Hyde’s tongue slipped out from between his jaws again but softly. Tasting her.

Her eyes fluttered closed at the feel of the wet sinuous length flexing against her flesh. Pressing against the pulse thumping beneath her skin. She had read somewhere that the tongue was the strongest muscle in the body. She shivered when she thought about what havoc such a long, dexterous and strong muscle could wreak on her. 

“Right here? In front of everyone?” 

He wondered if she knew how open to the idea she sounded. 

“Not today.” Hyde’s teeth closed on her neck but it was just a nip, just sharp enough to make her gasp. “Goodbye, my queen. We shall meet again.” 

“What?” Regina blinked rapidly when he straightened away from her, leaving her holding a knife against nothing. 

Hyde didn’t answer her, instead, he retreated quickly from her. With three giant steps he judged it distance enough and relaxed his hold on this form.

The backlash was shocking. A blast of magic convulsing out of his skin when Hyde’s entire body constricted on itself. He imploded down in a flash. A blinding streak of light and he was gone. 

Regina blinked rapidly, her hand half raised to shield herself from the magic only to find it over before she had begun. She kept blinking until the green and pink spots receded from her vision and threw herself forward when she saw what was left of Hyde. 

“Daniel!”

Regina’s heels clattered over the street and she dropped to her knees in front of the slumped body kneeling on the road. Smoke billowed from his skin, his back was bowed, his head hanging low and Hyde’s oversized clothes hung from him in rags. 

The silver Y shaped scar on Daniel’s chest was glowing golden it was so hot. Steam rose from it when the sweat slicking Daniel’s skin met the molten metal. It was the one feature that both Hyde and Daniel shared and apparently it bound their forms together. All of the magic science had to be channelled through that one point of commonality. Power beat from it in waves but Regina ignored it in favour of cupping Daniel’s face and lifting his head so she could see him properly.

“Daniel?” 

“Regina.” Daniel blinked sightlessly a few times and then focussed on her. “Regina.” He grinned when he saw her and wasted no further words. 

Rising up onto his knees, Daniel slid his steaming arms around her waist and hauled her against his chest. His mouth crushed against hers in a kiss hotter than the metal in his chest and he growled happy growls when she responded with equal passion. His tongue slid over hers, his teeth nipping against her lips and he poured everything he had into the kiss because he had been so damn scared that Hyde was going to kill her. 

Regina’s hands skated up over his arms, the leather of her gloves an alien but not unpleasant feeling and he was prevented from toppling her to the street and peeling them off with his teeth when she gasped and flinched away from him. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“That’s hot.” Regina laughed and looked down at the pink lines already rising over the swell of her breasts from where she had pressed against his burning scar. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think.” Daniel tugged her carefully closer and frowned down at the marks, his fingers tracing over them, wishing he could take the hurt from them. 

“Neither did I.” Regina smiled up at him. When he continued to look stricken, she cupped her hand like she intended to hold water in it and it filled with magic instead. 

With a moment’s concentration, she leaned a little back from him and poured the milky healing potion over her chest, soothing the burns instantly. The potion slithered over her skin, dripping and dribbling into her cleavage and down over the bodice of her dress.

“You are a wicked woman.” Daniel growled at her and resisted the very strong urge to clean away the magic with his tongue.

“Mom!”

Regina was prevented from answering him by the sound of Henry’s pounding feet. She shot Daniel a look that clearly meant ‘later’ and then turned to her son. 

“Henry.” 

“Are you okay? I was sure Mister Hyde was going to bite you.” 

“So was I.” Regina smiled and rose to her feet with an enviable ease considering corsets and ridiculous heels. 

Regina had no desire to explain to her son what Hyde had intended to do to her. Yes, biting probably would have factored in somewhere but it would have had to take a number with all the rest of the torments he wanted to weigh on her. Delicious torments, deadly too in all likelihood, but at least she’d go out with a smile on her face. 

“Good thing you had your boob knife.” Ruby held the shaped dagger out to Regina between one thumb and finger. 

It was a wicked little thing, only about four inches long, including the hilt, but sharp as a needle. The hilt was split in two curving arms that followed the neckline of her corset. 

Well, it wasn’t like she had a lot of other places to keep weaponry in this outfit and she did so hate to rely solely on magic.

“Thank you.” Regina accepted the knife with exaggerated care and turned half away from them to sheathe it again. 

Daniel watched with a burning interest. She noticed that his patience for ‘later’ might not last very long. 

“You’re really okay?” David touched Regina’s arm with just two fingers but drew quickly away when Daniel suddenly uncoiled to his feet. 

He used only the muscles in his legs to stand and –when he reached his full height- he seemed so much bigger. 

Maybe it was just because David now knew what was lurking beneath that glowing scar on his chest, but he definitely knew he was going to be keeping his hands to himself in the near future.

“I’m fine.” Regina nodded, her horn collar rattling with the movement. She seemed oblivious to Daniel looming behind her. “I am…unspeakably good.” She laughed and turned suddenly, looking up at Daniel. 

“Hello, love.” He smirked down at her, one hand hitched at the waist of his oversized trousers where they hung low on his hips.

“You survived.” 

“Of course I did.” Daniel shrugged a shoulder. “Did you think I’d let myself be stolen from you again?” 

“Yes.” Regina rested her hand over the scar on his chest which still pulsed with a lurid heat. The dragon hide of her gloves was the only thing that saved her from burns. “I’m glad I was wrong.” 

“Someone write that down!” Ruby looked around as if checking for a stenographer. “Regina Mills just admitted she was wrong.” 

“Quiet, peasant.” 

“And she’s back.” Ruby smirked.

Regina wasn’t paying much attention, she was trying not to give in to the temptation to climb Daniel like a tree in front of everyone and their dog. 

“How do you feel?” David dragged Daniel’s attention away from Regina though it took considerable effort on Daniel’s part. 

“Like I’ve been turned inside out and right way in again.” Daniel rolled his shoulders in a steaming and powerful movement.

“Hyde?”

“Quiet.” Daniel glanced over at Regina. “For now.” 

“I have ideas for keeping him that way.” Regina admitted, knowing what she was saying as she did so. 

She had known all along –at least strongly suspected- and that had been a lie. She had lied to Daniel like she did everyone else. She had told David, she had trusted a mortal enemy when she couldn’t trust her love. 

“I’m sure you do.” Daniel prowled closer. “Why don’t we go somewhere and speak more of this? I think I have the right to know. It is my body after all…even if it is part time now.” 

Regina looked up at him and saw something she didn’t expect in his face. He wasn’t angry, at least, that wasn’t what showed in his eyes. No, he seemed…pleased?

“Right…” Regina’s teeth tugged at her lip and she was aware that Ruby was somewhere in the background trying not to laugh at them. 

“ _Now_ , woman.” Daniel leaned in a little closer and Regina swallowed hard.

“I, um…” Regina stammered to a halt and glanced over at her audience. 

David looked surprised that she had been reduced to a stammering, flushing, wreck by nothing more than a few choice words, Ruby looked like she might implode from trying not to guffaw in open laughter and Henry just looked confused. 

“We got this.” David waved to the crowd and Regina smirked.

She didn’t need anything more than that, just enveloped Daniel and herself in purple smoke and spirited them away. 

Ruby burst out laughing.

 

_**Across Town…** _

 

Gold appeared in the dim shadows of the abandoned warehouse on the waterfront as was his style. No flash of fire, nor plume of smoke, just folding out of the space between with an alarming stealth and practicality. 

He cast about himself, examining the new hole in the roof, and picked his way through the debris to the epicentre of the damage. 

Blue was alive still. 

Just. 

She had a fractured skull, blackened eyes, crushed ribs, multiple compound fractures in her legs, her spine had been shattered in no less than three places, but she lived. 

Tough old thing. 

One swollen eye opened at his approach. 

“Afternoon, dearie.” Gold sank to one knee, his hands folded atop his cane and grinned down at her. 

Blue wheezed at him. 

“Ah yes, no wand means no magic, eh?” Gold lifted on hand and slowly passed it over her body. 

The healing was not pleasant. Bones sucked back beneath the flesh, forcing themselves back into their natural position, knitting together at an accelerated rate, blood replicating triple time. Gold even let the pressure in her swollen brain out through the fractures in her skull before sealing them closed. 

All in all, it might have been kinder to let her die. 

Once the screaming had died down and Blue had succumbed to exhaustion, just lying there and trying to remember how to breathe, she finally gathered herself enough to speak. 

“Why…?”

“Why what, dearie?” Gold conjured a chair for himself and sat neatly upon it, his hands once more folded on top of his cane. 

“Why save me?” 

“Save you?” Gold grinned, showing off his golden tooth. “This is not a save, dearie. This is punishment.” 

“Punishment for what?” 

“Interfering in my business. We had a deal, did we not?” 

“We…? The curse was cast, you got what you wanted.” Blue grimaced when she tried to sit up and her body rebelled. She gave a shriek when Gold helped her on her way and her back roughly met an old crate. She ached all over. 

“Regina, is my business and forever will be. This you well know.” Gold tilted his head. “Don’t you?” 

“I thought you had washed your hands of her.” 

“Oh no, no, no, no.” Rumplestiltskin shook his head, still grinning. “Quite the opposite. The girl did me a great favour by casting the curse, I owe her a debt.” 

“So you’ve decided to pay it by torturing me?” 

“This? Torture?” Gold laughed. “Don’t be foolish, I’m giving you a fighting chance. Had she been of a mind to, she could have easily killed you…my real query is; why didn’t she?” 

“She thinks she’s redeeming herself.” 

“By letting you live?” Gold chuckled. “She’s still a little lost I see.” 

“What do you want, Rumplestiltskin?”

“Your wings for cufflinks, Maab.” Gold smirked. 

“Then why not kill me?” 

“Simple, Regina isn’t ready to take your place just yet.” 

Blue’s eyes widened. 

“She couldn’t. She’s not strong enough! It took everything she had to cast the curse of curses.”

“Yet there she stood, this very afternoon, eating faerie magic. Her supposed weakness…she’s outgrowing us.” 

“So what do you suggest?” 

“I suggest nothing, I offer friendly advice instead.” 

Blue scoffed at him. 

“Tis true, dearie. You know you’d be wise to heed it, even from one so young as I.” 

“Say your piece and be done then.” Blue spat at him. 

“The piece is thus: the Dark One must have an opposite. A day to my night, this is well known, but nowhere is it written that she need be the Blue Faerie.”

“What?” Blue scowled at him. “It has always been that way.” 

“Aye, and ‘til a mere thirty years ago we had always lived in the Enchanted Forest. Regina went and changed that too. She already has your wand, how long before she takes your wings? I know the girl, that kind of maiming seems to suit her new vow not to kill. Once she has them, it shall be two out of three.”

“She’ll never take the third.” Blue shook her head vehemently. “She can’t, she’s evil.” 

“And yet she has her True Love, she builds a family for herself and even the town begins to hold a grudging respect for her…while you lie broken, bloodied and alone.”

“This is a trick. If you really do own Regina, why would you warn me? Her taking the Mantle of the Queen of the Fey could only be to your benefit.” 

Rumple smirked. 

“Everything is to my benefit, dearie. Given long enough.” 

Blue frowned, trying to see what he was really saying but she just couldn’t.

“Goading us into destroying one another won’t work. There shall always be an opposite to the Dark One, you’ll never have absolute power.” 

“I should hope not.” Gold grinned again. “Where would be the fun in that? No, dearie, you miss the point entirely. I have no desire for the status quo to change. This new Regina is unknown to me and grows to a power I did not credit her with…your crippled self is far more suiting as an adversary. I warn you not to get on her wrong side again. Do not act against her for you shall surely lose. Friendly words of advice, from one ancient to another.” 

Blue’s jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed. 

“I believe you overestimate her power. She could not hope to take on the entire court.” 

“Her herself? Perhaps not.” Gold shrugged. “She’s not on her own though, is she? She’s taken up an alliance with the wolves, Charming calls her friend and the monster Hyde returns in the flesh of her love. You have never faced Hyde, but I can tell you that it is not something you would enjoy. If the queen tames him to her touch –well- your precious girls will be devoured in an afternoon’s revelry.” 

“She wouldn’t dare!” Blue seethed. 

“Not unless provoked.” 

“You…you’re protecting her.” Blue tilted her head and smiled a sick smile. “That’s what this really is. You’re not certain she could prevail against me so you’re warning me off.” 

“If you want to believe that.” Gold shrugged. “It’s your funeral.” 

Blue shook her head.

“No, I was unprepared this afternoon, I underestimated her. It will not happen again. I can defeat her if I must.” 

“I shall lay bluebells upon your tombstone.” Gold mused aloud and slowly stood. “Well, I tried. Out of respect for an old adversary, I attempted to save your life. Pity.” 

Blue eyed him when he flipped his cane so that he held it as a club. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I told you, this is not a gift. You interfered in my business, that cannot go unpunished.” Gold lifted the cane over his head. 

“Rumple, wait…” Blue lifted a hand to ward him off. 

“Afraid not, dearie. Besides, your faeries come and I think I’d like them to see you a little mortal.” 

The cane whistled through the air and Blue screamed when her arm was broken once more. 

She’d have kept screaming but his next blow struck her throat and nearly collapsed her trachea. 

Then it became more about her survival.

As it had ever been.

 

_**The Mayoral Mansion...** _

 

“Hold still.”

“It’s fine.” Daniel tried to tug his head from her reach but she had hold of his ear now and wasn’t letting go. “It’ll heal.” 

“Do you want cauliflower ear?” Regina tightened her hold and brought his head around to where she could see the slice in his ear.

“What is that?” 

“A nasty affliction that would unsettle the symmetry of your head now stop squirming.” Regina dabbed at the cut with the antiseptic and he grumbled but let her have her way. 

He had been more than a little disappointed to be brought back to the Mayor’s Mansion for nothing more exciting than a change of clothes and some first aid. 

Regina had replaced his tattered oversized trousers with jeans that fit and given him another white button down shirt. He’d had to leave it open because the scar was taking a while to cool.

She’d replaced The Dress with a silky shirt of her own and one of those skirts that clung to everything to the knee. He liked those but he had the feeling they’d be a challenge to get out of the way without a rip or two. Not an unpleasant prospect…

“What are you doing now?” He demanded of her when she seemed content to just stand there holding his ear. 

“Holding the two halves together. I nearly sliced the entire top half off…I’m surprised the reversion didn’t fix the damage.” She was very close to him and –if she had her hands on him-

Daniel didn’t see why he shouldn’t take advantage. 

He was sitting on one of the dining room chairs, his legs parted so she could stand between them, so he occupied himself with settling his hands on her hips. 

“Daniel…”

“Yes, my love?” 

“Stop that.” 

“No.” His hands slid higher up to the cinch of her waist. She really was very slim there, corsets in her formative years doing their work. “You sliced my ear as an experiment, I think I’m entitled to a few liberties.” 

Regina looked at him sharply. 

“Come on, Regina, you’ve always had an inquisitive mind and magic fascinates you as much as it repulses you. I can only imagine the boggling your brain was set to when Hyde manifested as a mix of both science and magic.” Daniel plucked at the buttons of her shirt and her breath hitched. He smirked but didn’t peel the fabric apart. Not yet. 

“I had to know if injuries sustained in either form wouldn’t be ‘reset’ when you switched.” 

“I don’t plan on doing it again.” 

“I should hope not.” Regina leaned closer to study his ear. Knitting together nicely now that she was holding it straight. “That doesn’t mean you won’t get protective of me again…or that you won’t be attacked in response to –I don’t know- flinging one of the most powerful creatures within the confines of this town over a distance of several miles?”

“I was saving your life.” Daniel’s voice was hard. “I won’t apologise for it.” 

“I know…you just scared the hell out of me.” Regina huffed out a breath and leaned back from him, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders. “I haven’t looked beyond today.” 

“What do you mean?” Daniel frowned up at her. 

“I thought, if Hyde manifested…David and I had an agreement.” 

Daniel tilted his head and then a thunderous frown overtook his face. 

“He was going to…?!”

“Settle down!” Regina shoved him into the chair only through dint of magic and muscle –she still hadn’t shut off the wards that had let her survive Blue’s fight. Then again, considering the faerie magic that she’d eaten, she didn’t want to take chances until it had worked out of her system. “I don’t need Hyde turning up for dinner as well as lunch!”

That sobered Daniel but his jaw clenched to a line of granite. 

“You’d give up so easily?” 

“Easily?” Regina pushed away from him and he reluctantly let her go. She spun back to him, angry. “You think it was _easy_ planning your execution? You think it was easy writing the letters to Henry for all those birthdays I’d never see? You think it was easy trying so desperately not to hope that we could have some happiness together all the while knowing that a gods damned MONSTER lay curled in your heart?!”

“You think it’s easy finding this out after the fact?!” Daniel surged to his feet. “You think ignorance is bliss?! You think it’s nice to know that the woman you love doesn’t think you’re a real man?” 

“What?!” Regina stared at him, flummoxed. “How on earth did we get to that?” 

“You shut me out!” Daniel waved a hand wildly. “I’M different. I’M supposed to be the man you love! I’M the one you’re supposed to lean on! Instead you go to David who –up until a fortnight ago- wanted your head on a pike!”

Regina opened her mouth and stalled.

“It’s been longer than a fortnight.” She muttered and rubbed at her forehead. She heaved a sigh.

“You went to David and asked him to kill you!”

“So I didn’t go back to the way I was!” Regina nearly shrieked at him. “So I died the woman you loved, at your side, because I knew losing you again would do worse than kill me!” 

“I don’t want you to die at all.” Daniel took a step towards her and –for once- she didn’t retreat. It would seem she really had stopped doing that. Her chest still heaved and she was still mad and scared as hell but she wasn’t running and she was talking.

“You don’t get it, Daniel. I can’t end it myself. Cora saw to that a long time ago. You think I lived through her hell without ever thinking of escape? Did you really not wonder why I let myself become this hideous, broken, THING rather than rest alongside you when I realised I could NEVER bring you back?!” She heeled at the tears beading on her eyelashes with impatient hands. 

She was tired, hungry, terrified, relieved and terrified some more. It had been a long night and a hellish day and all she wanted was five minutes of normal with the man she loved.

Unfortunately for her, she seemed pathologically incapable of it. 

Her shoulders sagged when she saw the expression on his face. She looked away from him. 

“I swore to myself I’d never tell anyone that.” 

“Her claws are that deep?” Daniel took another careful step closer. “Still?” 

“She tied it to the blood connection between us.” Regina hugged herself. “There’s nothing to be done for it. I thought, when she died, it would too but…well, it’s not the first time I’ve been wrong.”

“Or wronged.” Daniel finally reached out and tugged her closer, impossibly glad that she stepped into the circle of his arms so readily and just as saddened that she needed such comforting. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why? It’s not you that did it.” Regina rested her cheek against the solid wall of his chest, his scar warm under her cheek. 

“Have I ever managed to protect you from anything?” He rested his chin on top of her head. 

“Oh yes.” Regina huddled closer to him. “Every day you let me love you. Every day that you said the words back to me…she couldn’t touch me then. For that span, I was unbreakable.”

“You could be that way again.” 

“Never. Not as I was.” 

“You are so much more than what you were. We both are. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m strong now, Regina, so strong. You can have some of it, you can have all of it if you want it. I’m not saying that we’ll be indestructible, but I will say that I will always be there to pick you up when you fall, to heal you when you’re hurt and to carry you when you think you can’t go on.”

Daniel hugged her tighter. 

“Do you believe me? I came back from the dead, I’ve survived werewolves, faeries and monsters living in my heart. I’ll not be taken from you again. By force nor choice. I’m here to stay.”

“There are still so many things that can hurt you.” She murmured. “Rumple knows I love you, he’d be a fool not to try and use you against me should I even think of crossing him. The townspeople have seen Hyde and –if any of them have the collective intelligence of a bag of flatworms- they’re forming up a mob right now to come for your head. You all but declared war on the faeries and may well have killed their queen and…and Hyde could return at any given moment.”

“You mean there are so many things that can hurt _you_.” Daniel gave her a squeeze just at the thought of someone trying to harm her. “You’re the target in every one of those scenarios. You’re the endgame. Hurting me would be a means to an end and I will protect you. You can say what you like about equality of the sexes, but I’ve not had thirty years in this castrating realm to fool me into thinking that’s not what I’m here for. I can’t protect you if I’m not alive, I made that mistake once, I’ll not do it again. I can protect you. I know I can…just as I know I can trust you to protect me.”

Daniel gently peeled her away from him so he could look her in the eye. 

“And that’s what it comes down to, Regina.” He held her by the shoulders, his heart in his mouth as he asked because this was it. “Do you trust me or don’t you?”

Regina rocked back on her heels and looked him in the eye. She had an inscrutable expression on her face. She looked at him for long moments like that and sighed. 

“I can see this is going to take a practical demonstration.” 

“What?”

“Hold this.” Regina took one of his hands in hers and held it palm up like she was about to drop something into it.

Daniel very nearly shrieked like a little girl when her hand plunged into her chest and she clapped her blackened heart into his palm. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowzers trousers, guys!
> 
> I'm so sorry that I've been away for so long and I've had NO excuse not to update this one as I've got about twenty chapters still to go ready and raring to be posted (yeah, twenty, I never stopped writing this bad boy). 
> 
> It's just been so busy with college and comicking and all that jazz that I've not had a spare minute to just sit and update as it isn't the quick and easy process it is on ffnet (hint, hint, administrators).
> 
> Anyway! Here we are with THAT chapter (you know the one). 
> 
> Enjoy and I will eventually reply to all the wonderful reviews that people leave for me. 
> 
> Ciao!

  
**Chapter 23 – Heart of the Matter**

“God, Regina, what are you doing?!” Daniel’s eyes were huge in shock and he lifted both hands to cradle her heart. “Take it back.”

“Wow.” Regina croaked and huffed out a breath. She sagged a little and looked down at her chest. Streamers of magic, long airy, gelatinous strings of it, looped between her chest and the heart in Daniel’s hands. “That’s never happened before.”

Her voice seemed to come from very far away and her ears kept popping.

“All the more reason to take it back!” Daniel was terrified to even move and began to get angry when she shook her head at him. 

“No, you have to see.” Regina forced herself to straighten, blinking rapidly and trying to shake it off. 

The spell didn’t work like that. It had never worked like that. The heart came out whole and unattached. Pocket sized and made for travel…or stowing in boxes. It did not remain attached to the body and it certainly didn’t give feedback of every little sensation along those pulsing magic capillaries tethering her to her heart. 

“What I can see is that your heart is in my hand!” Daniel snarled at her. Terrorised and angry and terrified all over again. “Not where it should be.” 

“Listen to me,” her voice was firmer, “this is how it is. This is what it’s like. When you ask me to love you, this is what you’re asking _for_. My heart in your hands. You might not hold it so literally all the time but it is always with you. All that power, the heart of an immortal, in the palm of your hand. Worlds have been conquered with less. Do you understand now? When you fall, I fall. You are my death, Daniel. One way or another, you will kill me.”

Daniel stared down at her, her heart cradled so close to his chest she could feel the thrumming pulse of his scar like a quivering violin string. They looked at one another for what felt like years and –for the first time- she felt like he was truly seeing her. 

“It’s brighter than I expected.” 

“What?” Regina tilted her head. 

“You seemed to believe so fully that it would be as black as coal but…it’s not.” Daniel looked down at her heart, magical strings spilling over his fingers, tethering her to him, and smiled.

“There’s darkness there, of course, you can’t live a life like yours without being tarred with that brush but there’s so much bright too. It’s like lace. Even your darkest parts are beautiful.”

Regina shivered when he stroked his fingers over her heart. 

“You…you use hearts to control people…don’t you?”

“I did.”

“So…I could control you now?”

Regina frowned, this was not at all going the way she’d thought it would. She’d expected freaking out and having to lunge to catch her heart before he dropped it on the floor. She’d expected the anger but she hadn’t expected him to think her heart, the blackest part of her, to be _beautiful_. She had wanted to scare some reality into him, wanted to hammer it home that this was NOT the Enchanted Forest and that people like her did not get happy endings.

Instead, she got this. 

“Yes, you could.” 

“And you trust me with that?” 

“Yes.” 

“Really?” 

“Do you think I’d have done it if I didn’t?” 

Daniel grinned. 

“Lift your right foot.” 

Regina nearly fell over she obeyed so quickly. Her arms flew out to balance her and she glared at him. 

“Daniel, do I really have to tell you that it’s not a toy?” 

“You just said it was mine, I can do what I want with it.” He still held it as gently as he would a baby bird though. Despite his smile, he was still reeling under the gravity of what she had just told him. He spoke suddenly serious again. “Tell me the truth.” 

“Which truth do you want to hear?” 

“How long have you known about Hyde?”

Regina’s jaw clenched when she automatically fought the command but she gave in just as quickly. She couldn’t hope to defend herself against it. Hearts were powerful, it was the reason she had collected so many. Unquestioning obedience was more than a little seductive.

“Since you came to see me that first time, I went to my vault when I disappeared. I found Hyde’s heart missing from my collection. I was never certain…but my paranoia is rarely wrong.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And tip off Hyde? Him knowing that I knew may have given him the strength to rise before I was ready.” 

“And you were ready today? With the plan for David to murder us both?”

“No.” Regina looked away from him. “I will never be ready for your death.” 

“I’m not planning on doing it any time soon.”

“Nobody plans for it, Daniel.” 

“You did.” 

“ _I’m_ crazy.” 

“Look at me.” Daniel was surprised when her head snapped violently around and she stared at him with every iota of intensity she possessed. “Comfortably.” 

Regina huffed out a slow sigh and blinked several times. 

“I didn’t realise.” He looked down at her heart. “It’s total control, isn’t it?” 

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Regina gave a wan smile. 

“How would you have felt? If I had died today and you had lived, would your reaction be any different to if you had admitted to yourself that you truly loved me? Would it have hurt you any less?”

“Of course not.” Regina looked tired. “I love you more than even True Love requires. I love you so much it hurts. When you look at me, I feel like I could be good again. I want so badly to be that woman that you fell in love with. To live up to your expectations, to be worthy of you, but I can’t and I never will. Not anymore. I’m broken and bloodied and –even now- bleeding from everywhere. My soul is in tatters –though it is healing- and my life is a ruin and just getting messier with everything I do…I can never simply love you. Our love will always be a hardship, that’s what I’m trying to show you, that’s why you’re holding my heart. It is a burden to both of us, Daniel. A burden you should never have to bear.” 

“Don’t be stupid.” 

Regina shivered violently and looked confused for a moment. Her eyes went wide and she tilted her head. 

“Okay, I actually feel smarter.” 

Daniel sighed and wished she’d take the damn thing back.

“You’re not a burden. You never have been. Even when you’re scatty and crazed and terrorising everyone, you’re still fascinating. It’s still incredible to even just watch you, to stand within the proximity of your intensity. I love you and that is no burden at all. Your heart is heavier than I expected. I can feel every one of your years in it. I can feel how hard you’ve lived and how deep your feelings go, I can feel every weakness, every chink in the armour, and my name is written on each one. I _know_ I am your greatest weakness and that is a heavy weight on my soul but I shall NEVER surrender it.” He stepped closer to her, her heart brightening with the proximity to her body and he smiled softly, waiting until she looked up at him of her own accord.  
“Regina, my love, if we are to share a death, then I shall have to live forever. If that is what it takes to keep you by my side, if the weight of that responsibility is the only thing that concerns you, then I shall gladly bear it. I’m stronger now, love, it hurts me not at all.”

Regina, slowly, smiled.

“There’s still Hyde.” 

“True Love’s Kiss breaks all curses.” 

“Okay, kissing cannot be your answer to everything and Hyde isn’t a curse anyway.” 

“Is ‘blight’ a more politically correct term?” Political correctness, something Daniel had recently come across, it still boggled his mind.

“He’s not…he just IS.” Regina shrugged helplessly. “He’s nomad science. Which is basically a dearth of morality that makes even me take a step back and wince coupled with a rudimentary knowledge of the basic nature of man. He comes from a time and place when hubris took over from good sense and a man ignored the natural order of things…let’s just say that somebody pissed in god’s eye and he blinked.”

“That was crude.”

“So is Hyde.” Regina hugged herself. “And now he’s part of you.”

“I take it that removing his heart from me…”

“Don’t even think it!” Regina glared at him. “I have no idea what it will do and I have even less desire to find out. Unlike certain doctors, I know when to leave well enough alone. The only time I’ve EVER stuck my oar in that kind of business I nearly ended up killing myself and you were pretty pissy about that if you’ll recall.” 

She looked unsettled at the very thought. 

“Alright, alright, I’m sure you’re plotting something anyway.” 

Regina’s mouth twisted and she looked away from him. 

“Maybe.” 

“Do you really believe he’s sunk that deep into me?”

“Daniel, he’s in your _heart_.”

“Which is technically his heart, I’m just using it.” Daniel shrugged. “I don’t feel different. I feel wrung out, but still strong. I don’t feel like I should be eating people. Do I look all that different?”

“Yes.” Regina’s eyes went on an unauthorised tour of his body and she gulped.

“How?”

“You’re hairier. In the chest and arms and –hopefully- in the rest of you.” Her voice had taken on a throaty quality and she shook herself to try and rid her voice of it. This bald honesty was not her bag at all. 

“Hairier?” Daniel looked down at his chest, his scar had cooled to the point where he could button his shirt without singing it, but his hands were full. “Nothing a razor won’t take care of.” 

“Don’t trouble yourself.” Regina spoke lightly though she looked disappointed at the notion. 

“Do you really think you should be worried about a little hair? If that’s all Hyde can do to me when he’s dormant, I think we’re doing pretty good.” 

“It’s the precedent it sets.” Regina waved her hand. “He did it because he knows I prefer it and…” Regina faltered to a halt when she noticed Daniel’s expression. She pressed her lips together. 

“How does he know you prefer it?” 

Regina bit her lip until it turned white rather than answer him. 

“Wait, did you and he…?” 

“Of course not!” Regina threw up her hands, moved to turn away from him and reversed the move just as quickly when her heartstrings were literally pulled. “He’s nearly eight feet tall. The size differential alone would…”

“Is that the only reason you didn’t?” 

“No!” Regina choked a moment when she tried to keep the words down but Daniel just waited. She eventually spoke from behind gritted teeth. “I wanted him but I didn’t want to die doing it…I wasn’t sure my magic would hold him he has a certain…immunity.”

“Hyde’s immune to your magic?” 

“There’s a reason I had to drown him in the bodies of my Blackguard to get close enough to stick my arms in his chest.” Regina gave up on trying to gulp the words back down. She was only hurting herself really. 

“So…had you been strong enough to pin him and he’d been a little smaller…?” 

Regina twisted as if he was prodding at her with a red hot poker and struggled violently against her answer but Daniel wasn’t above letting her tire herself out.

“Yes!” Regina gasped. “Yes, damn it, I’d have ridden him until we were both lame. I’d have used him in ways not even the gods have heard of. I’d have let him do whatever he wanted to me short of tearing the flesh from my bones and I may have even been talked into that if it would let me forget YOU!”

Regina stood there, looking horrified at everything that had just spilled from her, her chest heaving with every ragged breath.

“How’s my darkness now?” Her voice was harsh. “Still pretty?” 

“Beautiful.” 

“What?” 

“I said your darkness is beautiful.” He considered her long moments and she misread it. 

“So, this is it? You’ve finally realised what it means when I say I’m twisted? Beginning to realise why everyone hates me?”

“I don’t hate you. I knew you were attracted to Hyde.” Daniel shrugged. “I could see it in the way your pupils dilated when he spoke, the way your breath hitched when he touched you, smell your arousal.” 

Regina’s jaw clenched and she looked away from him. 

“Don’t be ashamed.” Daniel risked taking one hand away from cradling her heart and took her chin, turning her back to him. “You react exactly the same way to me. And I felt what Hyde felt. That strength, the size and the sheer unapologetic…ferocity. The darkness is seductive. I never realised how true that was until I saw you through Hyde’s eyes. Not just you, not just my Regina, but the Evil Queen too. Ruler of all she surveys, fearless, fierce, unflinching, cunning and dangerous. Like loving a tiger. So beautiful, so stunningly powerful, but so deadly at the same time.” 

“You cannot possibly be okay with me wanting to jump the bones of another man.” Regina threw her arm wide. “Especially when he’s not even really a man!”

“So long as you’re okay with me ‘jumping the bones’ of the Evil Queen.” Daniel smirked. “That dress was something else.” 

“That’s different. It’s not just the dress. She is me, we’re not separate entities like you and Hyde.” 

“Hyde isn’t separate from me anymore either.” Daniel shrugged. “Neither am I without my own darkness. You keep talking like I’m this paragon of virtue and I’m NOT. When I saw Blue stab you, what do you think happened? Hyde wouldn’t have been able to surface if not for me wanting to rend Blue limb from limb just for looking at you sideways. I’m jealous of David. I know it’s not a sexual thing between you, but you spent forty years trying to kill the man and now you spend more time with him than you do me and it burns at me.” 

Regina blinked, she hadn’t thought of it that way at all.

“Do you get it? Do YOU understand what it means to love me? I’m not perfect. I am not this golden antithesis to your darkness. I am a man, I get angry, I get jealous and I get possessive. I want to hoard you to myself all the time. I resent that you dote on Henry even though he’s done nothing to deserve such unflinching loyalty to you.”

“I’m his mother.” Regina frowned. 

“I know that!” Daniel huffed a ragged sigh. “In my head and my heart I know that but there is a dark and nasty part of me that wants to shake the boy until he rattles for hurting you and that’s NOT Hyde that is all me.”

“You’d never do it.”

“Regina, the only difference between you and I is that you lost me. Had it been the other way around…I’d have done terrible things. Hyde would have taken notes from me. You’re not the only one who had just one person to love them.” 

Regina pressed her lips together and let her hand rest on his chest over his heart. Hers throbbed with veins of blue in his hand in response to the pain she felt at his suffering. Of course, that was right. His father had been a drunk and someone in sore need of a leathering and his mother had been taken by the plague when he’d been little more than a boy. 

Daniel had been alone when Regina’s father had bought him and it had taken him a long time to warm up to Regina. He had preferred horses to people and it hadn’t been until he’d noticed her limping from one of Cora’s ‘lessons’ that he’d offered to help her. He’d rubbed down her leg –with horse liniment of all things- because he knew limping and he knew how to fix it.

She had shown him that horses and people might not be completely alien to one another and he’d shown her that not all touch brings pain. 

“I forgot.” She rubbed at his chest. “I forgot that we always helped one another…that we fixed one another.” 

“And it’s something I’ll continue to do.” Daniel’s hand came down on her shoulder and the other thrust into her chest. 

Regina choked, instinct took over. The last time she’d had a hand around her heart and in her ribcage, Rumple had taken her heart and made her dance until her feet bled to show how far past her physical limitations she could go and survive. She had never let him do it again. He had certainly tried but it had been the first spell she had ever invented herself and he had come a cropper of it harshly. Turning her ribs into teeth and biting off the fingers of her mentor had earned her respect as much as it had punishment.

So it was mindless panic that had her hand lashing out, fingers clawed and sinking into his chest. 

At least, they would have had the spell worked.

“Fuck!” Regina wrenched away, Daniel’s fingers slithering from her chest, her heart once more where it belonged, and she curled her entire body around her injured hand. 

Her fingers had been bent violently back the wrong way, burned by the spell that should have allowed her to sink her arm in to the elbow and haul Hyde’s massive heart out of Daniel’s chest. She never would have, her brain had been a red jelly of panic when Daniel’s hand had suddenly been in her chest. She would have stopped herself before she’d actually done it but the crackling blackened skin of her hand now made it clear that she couldn’t have even if she’d wanted to. 

Regina lifted her hand to examine it. Burned. The top layer of skin turned completely to charcoal. Only the spells she’d lain into her bones to withstand Blue’s beating had saved her from a pulverising shock that would have reduced her hand to the consistency of a tube of toothpaste with pebbles in it. She dusted herself off, black soot clouding from her fingers, and flexed carefully. She huffed out a breath, eyebrows raised, and turned to look at Daniel. 

“What –in all the seven hells- was that?” 

“I’m sorry, it was instinct, the last time someone took my heart it wasn’t pleasant.” 

“Not that.” Daniel waved it away. He pointed at her hand. “That!”

Regina mulled it over a moment and considered not telling him just because that was an option to her now, but relented after a moment. She smirked. 

“Clever beast.” Regina approached Daniel and stroked a black streaked finger over the scar. It gave off a singing chiming sound at her touch. “I wondered why it hadn’t healed. At the rate you regenerate, your body should have sweated out these staples in a matter of moments, but not this. It’s here to stay.”

“It’s how Hyde comes out.” Daniel had felt it happen. The scar peeling apart and turning him inside out until he wore Hyde like a giant uncontrollable suit. 

“Yes, but not just that, it’s a ward.” 

“What?” 

“A magical term. It seems he was paying attention to what I was doing in my lab as well as trying to chew through my corset laces. It’s a barrier. A protective spell.” 

“You said Hyde was science, not magic.” 

“If you go far enough in either field, the lines between become blurred.” Regina was stroking the scar, her eyes whirling through different colours, studying it in different spectrums. Infrared showed some interesting things. “He has set up a faraday cage around his heart.”

“Faraday?”

“Um…it stops energy harmful to what’s inside from getting in.” She was not getting into a discussion of electromagnetism with him right then. “I didn’t realise one could be done with magic. Science and steel against magic…magic loses.” 

“Is it…bad?” Daniel was getting distracted by the way she was tracking his scar. From one collar bone, to his sternum, to the other side and back again. Her fingers, counting the silvery staples leading to his navel. 

She appeared deep in thought.

“It won’t hurt you. In fact he’s protected himself against the one thing that could kill him. Hyde regenerates so quickly that I suspect I’d have to get him to eat a grenade in order to cause enough damage so that I could burn him to nothing. Without the advantage of being able to take his heart…remind me to think about this later, I just realised something much more important.” 

“Which is?” 

“Hyde can’t be killed.” Her fingers walked back up the scar so her palms could rest against his chest. She tugged gently on the hair there making him intensely aware of her.

“Why do you look happy about that?” Daniel frowned at her slowly growing grin, trying not to let his own hands go exploring. If he started he’d never stop. 

“Don’t you see? Hyde IS you. You ARE him. In a physical sense, you’re exactly the same and –if Hyde can’t be killed…you can’t be taken from me either.”

“I’ve been telling you that for weeks.” 

“Daniel, not even _I_ can tear out your heart and I’m the strongest one here.” Her hands inched higher, up towards his clavicle, fisting in the collar of his shirt and tugging him, bending him to her.

“Also been telling you that for weeks.” Daniel tried to focus on what she was saying still. 

“Which means,” Regina reached up and cupped his face in both hands pulling him closer, “I can’t hurt you. Even if I wanted to, even if you wage such sensual torture on me that I lose my damn mind, you can survive me.”

“Oh…kay.” Daniel refused to let himself hope she was talking about what he thought she was talking about. “We’d have to be in bed for some serious sensual torture though.”

“My love, after forty years, we’re not going to get that far.” Regina’s voice was a throaty purr and she dragged him down to her level. 

Daniel grunted in surprise when her mouth crushed up against his and he was simultaneously walked backwards until he crashed into the dining room table. He had said that he was fascinated by the Evil Queen and he had been electrified by her presence. Regina had said that they were one and the same, but he hadn’t quite realised what that had meant until her nails dug into his shoulders and she kissed him like she wanted to devour him. 

His surprise did not last long.

Daniel’s fingers tunnelled into her hair, wrenching her head back, and he deepened the kiss. His tongue lanced into her, stroking over hers, and he took her with a ferocity that even surprised him. His arms wound tight around her and he crushed her close.

Regina mewled into his mouth, tearing at his shirt, pulling it from his shoulders and arms until she was given unrestricted access to his chest. He was hot, so feverishly hot, his skin was like velvet. It would seem Hyde had changed that about him too. Smooth to stroke one way and thrillingly rough the other. Daniel growled.

He liked being rubbed the wrong way. 

Regina was the more practiced of the two of them. She could literally undress a man with her eyes closed and nothing save her teeth for buttons and zippers. 

What Daniel lacked in experience he more than made up for with enthusiasm. 

Some part of him decided that they were going to bed. If he was to take her, if it was to be their first time with one another, it was damn well going to be in a bed. She meant more to him than to simply take her on the floor like an animal…though that was on his list too. 

Still, no reason he couldn’t enjoy himself on the way there. 

Daniel’s hand fisted in her shirt and he gave a short yank, shredding it from her body with gleefully destructive movements. She grinned at the zipping burn of the fabric against her skin, not harmed in the slightest, and arched to his biting kisses down her throat to her clavicle. His hands stroked down the naked skin of her back and lower to cup her ass in both hands. He dragged her flush against him, grinding her against the iron bar of his cock in his jeans and she whimpered. Such a needy sound, so different to the mewl. He bit the curve of her breast and she gasped. 

Another sound. 

How many could she make?

Daniel set about finding out. 

He staggered away from the table, heading in the vague direction of the staircase but quite unable to watch where he was going. Regina was intent on his belt buckle and was not one to be dissuaded no matter how many drugging kisses he distracted her with. Regina teetered backwards in her heels and they crashed into a wall somewhere. A table was toppled over, something smashed. Daniel pinned her hands to the wall, raising them up over her head and pinning her wrists there with one hand spanning both of them. 

The other hand trailed down over her body like a snake after a free lunch. He took her bottom lip between his teeth and bit hard enough to distract her from his fingers questing at the waistband of her skirt. He’d been right, this world’s clothing was far too fiddly for a man intent on getting a woman naked in a hurry. He bunched the fabric in his fingers, tugging it up her leg, stretching it to its limit and continuing on past endurance. Something ripped, stitching popped. Daniel grinned into her mouth when the skirt gave way to his ministrations and he was free to haul it up her legs to around her hips. 

Regina, so onboard with his plan that it was almost painful, wasted no time in lifting her legs and cinching them about his hips. She undulated up against him, pressing her chest against his, only the silky nothing of her bra separating them. 

Now that it was just him walking, they were going places. 

Daniel slid her along the wall, dragging her away from it only when something crashed to the ground and shattered. She mumbled something about his bare feet and a blast of magic pulverised whatever it had been into dust. 

It may have been a mirror, it was nothing but glitter and scorch marks now. 

He made it all the way to the stairs before his belt surrendered to her delicate fingers. The button and fly of his jeans gave way to her in quick succession and her hand delved into his pants without further hesitation. 

Daniel briefly lost control of his legs when her hot little hand wrapped around his cock. 

“Gods, woman!” Daniel saved her from clattering her skull off the steps only by dint of fast reflexes and his hand spanning the back of her head. 

Regina just chuckled at him and stroked.

Daniel’s back arched and he fought not to just let his eyes roll back in his head. Gods, she was good at that. Before he could stop her, she had both hands down there and he growled in appreciation. 

She purred, nibbling his neck, and stilled only when her brain realised what her fingers were telling her. She drew back and looked down. 

“Good grief, you’re huge!”

Daniel didn’t reply, he bit through her bra strap instead. Eyelet catches were a little beyond him right then and the steps were in the way.

“Seriously though, where are you going to put all that?” She laughed but it melted into a groan when he dragged the cup of her bra down and lapped his tongue over her nipple. “Never mind,” her fingers tangled in his hair and she arched closer to his mouth, “we’ll think of something.” 

“Woman, you talk too much.” Daniel’s teeth clipped through the other strap and he lost patience with that and simply tore the rest from her. “You wear too many clothes too.” 

“You seem to enjoy removing them.” She smirked and bit little kisses along the line of his jaw. 

His reply was a growl and a rip of fabric when her skirt was the next casualty to his sensual war. Her clothes were reduced to tatters and scattered around her like discarded wrapping paper on Christmas morning. Only her stockings, panties and high heels remained. 

He stilled when he found himself with miles of flawless skin to look at. His eyes glittered with intensity and he lifted one broad hand and settled it on the toned lines of her stomach. He stroked reverently, measuring the exact softness of her skin, the quiver of excitement that shivered through her, the hitch in her breathing at the cool air contrasting with his furnace like heat.

He looked ready to pounce but, disappointingly, steadied himself. 

“Bed.” He reminded himself. “We’re going to bed.” 

Regina whooped when he hoisted her up and slung her over his shoulder. He bounded up the stairs and she growled. 

He’d done this before. He’d need to learn not to pull the same trick on her twice. She did learn from some of her mistakes. 

Daniel yelped when he hit the top landing and the carpet suddenly had all the traction of black ice. His feet kicked out from under him, he dragged Regina down over his chest to save her from getting crushed, and landed flat on his back with a very self-satisfied queen on top of him. 

“Heh.” She grinned and her hands spanned his shoulders, her nails scoring into his flesh. She bent to him, biting a kiss to his lips and then scooted backwards down his body. 

His jeans had no hope of withstanding her attentions. 

She set fire to them. 

Daniel would have yelped if he’d had the time, but they burned to ash in less than a second and she waved the soot away with a flick of her fingers and a thrill of magic. He was left sprawled with her kneeling between his legs before he even knew what had happened. 

She grinned like a damn Cheshire cat and her hands spanned his thighs, dragging her nails over the muscle and tanned skin there. 

“Oh look, you are hairy all over.” She hummed in the back of her throat, leaning over him and setting her fingernail to the arrow of dark hair that led from his chest down over the rippling muscles of his stomach to the throbbing head of his cock that stretched almost to his navel. 

Her tongue slid over her teeth and she pounced at the same time that Daniel tried to sit up and take her in his arms again. 

Her mouth closed over the head of his cock and Daniel stiffened, falling back to the floor, a hiss of breath sucked in through his teeth. 

Regina chuckled, her teeth biting down, just a touch, just a hint of danger, before she sucked him into her mouth. 

Daniel was incapable of thought, incapable of words, all he could do was growl and arch and try not to buck his hips and choke her. Wicked, wicked, woman. His hands balled into fists as she tortured him. The chords in his neck stood out, his jaw clenched and every muscle in his body bunched into sharp relief. 

She lapped with her tongue, sucked, kissed and stroked what she couldn’t swallow until he plummeted towards madness. It was only when he thought he could gentle himself enough to touch her that he ended it. 

His fingers delved into her hair and he tore himself from her mouth. She mewled in disappointment and he dragged her up, forcing her to crawl over him so that he could crush her mouth down over his. He could taste himself on her tongue and it just made his chest thrum with a deep growl. 

He was going to repay her tenfold.

Daniel kissed her already bruised lips hard enough to make her whimper, his large hands almost spanning her slim waist. He hoisted her even further up his body, her stockings slithering silky and cool over his flanks, so that he could bend his attention to her breasts. He tormented her nipples. Licking with a rasp of his tongue, biting hard enough to make her gasp and then blowing gently so that the cooling sensation made her shiver violently.

Her nails dragged over the carpet, ripping great tears in it to bare the floorboards beneath. Her heels dug into his hips and she hadn’t seen anything yet. 

Daniel lifted her again, his vast strength moving her around as if she weighed nothing, and he pushed her higher and higher until she knelt with a knee on either side of his head. 

“Daniel…”

“Off.” Daniel pulled the waist of her ridiculously small panties away from her skin and let it snap back with a little sting. 

“Daniel, I’ve never…”

“Off.” He bit the inside of her thigh and her panties were suddenly gone. Disappeared in a plume of purple smoke. Daniel chuckled at the thought of where they might end up but didn’t let it distract him from the task at hand, er, mouth. 

His teeth scored over the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, his lips kissing and sucking little love bites closer and closer to the dripping prize of her cunt. He was going to enjoy this, but not as much as she was. 

Daniel boosted her closer when she tried to squirm out of his hold. She wanted this, she was afraid because it meant he was in control, that she would lose it, but she wanted him and she wanted this. He had no idea what she liked, how sensitive she was and where, but he had a trick for learning. 

Daniel gave her no warning. He pulled her down onto his mouth and thrust his tongue into her as hard and as deep as he could. 

Regina screamed, her back arching, and Daniel gave her no mercy.

She tasted delicious. She was wet and ripe and so damn perfect he lost himself in driving her wild with hard thrumming licks from the well of her entrance to the bud of her clit and back again. Still, every woman liked that, he wanted to know what drove her in particular over the edge. 

His plan was simple; hold her in place, let her squirm and wriggle without ever getting away, and spell out the alphabet into her flesh with his tongue.  
He had her moaning by E. Her hips twitched and bucked involuntarily when he licked an L and –by the time he got to O- sweat beaded on her skin, fire sparked from her eyes and magic thrilled from her into him with every roll of her hips.

Regina couldn’t handle it. She had never –ever- let a man have this much power over her. She had driven them wild. She had taken them into her mouth and used her hands until they couldn’t see straight, but she had never let them have her like this. It was too personal, too intimate, too vulnerable.

The magic built in her with the rising of her orgasm. She bucked and writhed, trying to get away, trying to contain it. This was different, this was insane, the power she could feel boiling up from within her. She couldn’t control it.

“Daniel!” She could only gasp his name but he didn’t seem to hear her. One hand immobilised her hips and the other slid between her legs. “Please!” 

Regina collapsed forward, catching herself on her hands and when Daniel ruthlessly pushed two fingers deep inside her. That was torture enough, but then his teeth closed on her clit and his tongue lashed her. She reared back up off the floor her back arching like a strung bow a scream ripped from her mouth and a torrent of magic splashed up against the ceiling. 

Grass and wildflowers sprang up in the wake of the foaming magic. A miniature meadow sprawling in her hallway, painted up over the walls and across the ceiling. The scent of pollen and springtime friskiness was rife in the air. 

Regina was barely aware of any of it, her body wracked with aftershocks. Purple lightning arcing from her skin, magic streaming from her in vapour, beading on her skin alongside the glisten of sweat and Daniel chuckled, drinking it down with every maddening stroke of his tongue. 

“Wicked…man…” Regina panted and Daniel continued to torment her. His tongue flicking against her, his fingers twisting inside, the pads of his fingers stroking over that eye rolling sensitive spot that had her shivering every damn time. She broke before he did. “Enough!”

Daniel yelped when they were suddenly in the bedroom. She was still a little scattered from her recent mind searing orgasm, so her aim was a little off. They rematerialized a few feet _above_ the bed and the wooden frame protested loudly when their combined weight crashed down onto it. Regina didn’t care, she was where she wanted to be. Straddling Daniel, her fingers tangled in his hair and her other hand wrapped around his cock, her knees gripping his hips. Regina sat up, pulling him towards her, and sank down. 

“Ah, no.” Daniel grinned, sucking in a breath between his teeth with a hiss. “Not so fast. Enjoy it.” 

“I will if you let me.” Regina’s words gusted, panting, against his lips. His hands spanned her hips and he ruthlessly controlled her as she sank down onto him. 

Regina whimpered. His fingers had been wicked and stretching, his tongue sinuous and flexing, but his cock all but fried her brain. Either he was the largest man she’d ever had to take or it had been even longer for her than it had felt. 

Daniel pushed into her, inch by torturous inch, and watched her face for every minute reaction. The way her eyes fluttered closed and then flew wide, the rising colour scoring over her cheekbones, the way her pupils dilated so her eyes were nearly completely black, her kiss bruised lips parting, the way her pulse thundered in the hollow of her throat and the way a bead of sweat slid down over her skin between her breasts. She was beautiful. Every single facet of her. He had never loved her more than when they were finally –finally- joined with one another. 

Regina gasped when she thought she’d taken all of him and then he guided her hips into a rolling motion and –with a sudden heft- forced another inch on her. She gave a little scream that she bit her lip to contain and he laughed against the skin of her neck. 

“Are you laughing at me?” Regina scrambled at his shoulders, trying not to turn into a noodle and just collapse on him. She felt like she was overloading. What the hell was she going to do when he moved?

“No, love, I’m happy.” Daniel wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged her close, pressing a kiss to her chin. “We’ve always been two halves, now we’re finally whole.”

Regina blinked and felt her eyes burn. She looked away from him, not wanting him to misread it. Intimate. This was the first time she had ever really been intimate with anyone.

Oh, she’d had men, as many as she’d wanted and more besides, but she’d loved none of them. She’d used them or they’d used her and it had been more about power, more about who was in charge, who owned who, rather than the simple joy of expressing you loved someone. She…she’d never made love to anyone before. 

“I know.” Daniel pressed kisses to her cheeks, kissing away the tears. “I as well, my love.” 

Regina opened her shining eyes and looked into the midnight glitter of his. Like looking at the sky at night. Such deep, endless, eyes. 

She seized him in a sudden kiss. Happiness was not something she was used to and she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it but she did know what to do with a man between her legs.   
Regina’s fingers tangled in Daniel’s hair and she kissed him like she was never going to let him go again. His arms wrapped around her and he lifted her, swallowing her moan when he dragged her down onto him again. He guided her into a rhythm, slow at first, but stunningly powerful. He seemed to fill her so much she could feel him in her throat, she felt the magic building again and she had no idea where it was coming from. She’d ponder it later though, right then, she was more interested in learning how to make Daniel scream. 

Regina toppled him backwards onto the mattress (the bedframe creaking alarmingly) and –after a moment’s hesitation- flipped them both so she lay beneath him. 

Daniel huffed out a breath and looked down at her. His hips bucked before he caught himself and he braced his weight on shaking arms. 

“You’re sure?”

Regina pulled him closer, pressing a searing kiss to his lips.

“You are different.” She whispered against his mouth and he growled. Such a strange sound it was nearly a purr. His mouth crushed to hers and he loomed over her, doing nothing to hide how powerful he was. 

He filled her vision, blocking the light from falling on her, all she could see was steely muscle and velvet skin. His shoulders, arms and chest caging her from all sides. Her legs tightened around his hips with the thrill of excitement that such delicious entrapment sent through her. Daniel captured her hands in his, threading their fingers together and stretching her arms up over her head, pinning them against the mattress. His tongue thrust into her, taking her prisoner and his entire body undulated against hers. 

From that moment, True Love succumbed to the decidedly earthier task of branding themselves to one another. 

Daniel thrust into her hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. She gasped and mewled, twisting her hands free of his grip so she could drag her fingernails down over his chest, arms and back. She left raised red welts on his skin and foxfire trails of magic in her wake. His teeth set to her neck, pressing over the carotids on either side of her throat. Biting and relaxing in a dizzying alternation between catch and release. 

Regina bucked up to meet every single one of his thrusts, taking him to the hilt every single time. She withstood him, met him move for move, took him at his fiercest and begged for more. 

They were so evenly matched, in fact, that neither of them noticed that the rest of the house wasn’t quite up to the task. The bedframe battered against the wall until the wallpaper ripped and the plaster crumpled. The clawed feet of the bed snapped off, grinding the frame itself into the carpet, Daniel’s fisting hands shredded the pillows, puffing feathers into the air, Regina’s magic had set the sheets on fire and neither of them even noticed. 

Neither of them could last. They couldn’t hope to. This had been decades in the making and it was beyond what either of them had even hoped for. 

Regina felt the magic roiling in her again, battering against her skin, frothing higher and higher. She could scarcely breathe, it seemed to fill every part of her. 

Daniel twisted his hips and she gasped. She was close, so close, and she wasn’t going over the edge herself this time. She drew him closer, fusing her mouth to his and this time -when her orgasm screamed magic out through her mouth- she breathed it into him. 

Daniel’s eyes flew wide, gulping down all that raw power, and he crashed into her. He thrust as deep as he could and roared. Exploding into her. The world went white and quiet for long ringing moments and they seemed to melt into one another. He couldn’t tell where he ended and she began and he knew that was exactly how it was supposed to be.

Daniel took a while to get back to the real world and –when he did- he found himself flat on his back, Regina curled on top of him, rising and falling with every heave of his chest. He could see the vapour rising from them both, smell the cinder of the crisped bed sheets and listened to the creak of the abused bedframe. 

“Are…” His voice was a haggard croak and it took a moment for him to regain it. “Are my eyes green?”

Regina grunted, lying facedown on his chest, her hair tumbled over so he couldn’t see her face. Her shoulders hunched and it took her three attempts to find the coordination to lift her head. She blinked blearily, sparks of purple trailing from her eyelashes. It took her a further minute to remember what the question had been and look into his eyes. 

She smiled lazily, satisfied, and reached up with a wobbling hand to stroke his cheek. 

“Blue.” She sagged against him, resting her chin against his. “Midnight blue.”

“Definitely?”

Regina dragged herself closer, nose to nose with him, staring into his eyes. It should have been awkward, uncomfortable, it wasn’t. She looked perfectly at home exactly where she was.

“Definitely. That was all you.” She heaved a satisfied sigh. “I loved it.”

“Really?”

“Wait,” Regina tumbled off him and stretched out on the battered bed, uncaring of the magical flames licking at her skin, “I’m not sure. You’ll have to do it again.” 

Daniel smirked and rolled up onto one elbow, looking down at her.

“All of it? Exactly the same?”

Regina stretched her arms over her head, posing at her best angle for him, she needn’t have bothered.

“Feel free to experiment with variations along the theme.”

His hand stroked over the lean lines of her stomach, down to the curve of her hip, pulling her towards him. She was slicked with sweat, coated in magic and soot from the scorched bedspread, but she’d never looked more beautiful than she did then.

“I love you.” She said the words as if still getting used to them and he was happy to hear it until she did and years beyond that.

“I love you.”

Regina’s eyes toured down his body and back up again.

“Show me.”

So he did.   



	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TA-DAH!
> 
> This AND Heart and a Half. Don't say I'm not good to you.
> 
> Still, having been super clever and figured out how to transfer ALL formatting between Word document and AO3 (actually not that clever, i may have been a bit of a dumbass), I can now update chapters toot sweet and will perhaps stop being a lazy arse about such things. 
> 
> That, and i'm up to chapter forty...three? It only went up to 38 on ffnet so y'all have some extra goodies for you when I do finally get that far :D.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy and plead with me to add more chapters and I may become a benevolent goddess and do so.

**Chapter 24 – No Rest for the Morally Questionable**

Daniel lay propped up on one elbow and watched Regina with an unmistakably predatory intensity.

It was the third morning since Hyde had first manifested and Daniel still wasn’t tired of looking at her.

She was sprawled over the mattress, tucked into his side and enjoying the belting heat of his skin. She slept with a lazy smirk curling her lips, something that had come into being when he had begun to stroke her naked spine from the nape of her neck to the dimples of her lower back.

Her hair was tousled, her lips bruised from kisses, she wore no makeup and –had she not had the magic to heal minor wounds within minutes- she’d have born further signs of several days of thorough loving.

Daniel had not been alone in his fervour to claim her, he knew. His own accelerated healing had been put to the test. She’d scored his back with her nails, bruised his shoulders she clutched at them so tightly and had once bitten him on the lip so hard that she’d drawn blood.

His healed mouth stretched into a grin at the memory. Though it faded when he thought about how much he had enjoyed the borderline violence and had reciprocated it with enthusiasm in a way he never would have before. 

He had changed. He knew he had.

Because of Hyde.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, immersed in Regina as he had been, but there was definitely a difference. It was as if he had suddenly had that dark and primal part of him enlarged. That wicked wildness that lived inside everyone had suffered a growth spurt and loomed large and excitable just under Daniel’s skin.

He couldn’t _hear_ Hyde, the monster didn’t speak to him, but he could feel his wants. Taste his desires.

In many ways, they wanted the same thing. They wanted Regina. Wanted her safe, wanted her close, wanted her to be his, wanted her to feel the same way.

Hyde felt it with a depth and power that was downright ferocious. Everything Hyde felt, he felt to its furthest extremity. Even affection from him would be terrifying. He was restricted by nothing. Kindness, decency, morals, none of it mattered to him. He wanted what he wanted and what he wanted was Regina.

It would have been horrifying had Daniel not had a use for it.

His strength had been a by-product of Whale's resurrection process, but Hyde’s ferocity, his keener senses, his _size_ if nothing else, all of those would be useful in the coming conflict.

Because Daniel highly doubted that he was going to get away with what he had done to Blue.

Regina might believe him to kind, too good, to have wished the spine shattering that Hyde had doled out to the head faerie, but Daniel had been the one that had told Hyde to cripple her.

He hadn’t realised it until afterward. Hyde had wanted to bite her head off and eat it, but Daniel had wanted her to suffer longer than that. She had made Regina _bleed_. It was not something he was ever going to forgive.

So he had declared war and used the face of Hyde to do it.

That had rankled Daniel a little. It felt something like cowardice to let everyone assume it had just been Hyde behind it all but the fact remained that Hyde would never have gotten out if Daniel hadn’t –on some level- given permission.

Daniel supposed he should feel contrite that he had felt such a stark and murderous rage as to let the maneater in his heart off the leash…but he didn’t. When it came to Regina, he could be as irrational as any crazed storybook villain.

He’d do terrible – _terrible_ \- things to anyone that tried to harm her and he wouldn’t be sorry.

Not an ounce.

As proved by him starting a damn _war_.

He got the sense from Regina –and how she had acted about the fey- that they didn’t really know the meaning of proportionate response. Chances were, they would come for him with fire and magic and Regina would step in to defend him. She wouldn’t believe him capable of going up such a powerfully magical threat and he could hardly blame her because he really didn’t know what to do.

There was no doubt he’d fight like a demon to protect Regina and himself but he wasn’t a warrior. He had no weapons of his own other than his newfound strength and durability and –while Hyde’s transformation was a hell of a trick- he was loathe to surrender his free will to the monster. If he let Hyde out and Hyde got to kill, to devour and lay waste, Daniel doubted he’d regain control any time soon.

So he needed something else.

He needed to know how the fey would fight. He needed to know what their weaknesses were and he needed to figure out how to take advantage of them because Daniel didn’t want to go to war.

He wanted the fey to come for him and then he wanted to give them such a kick in the teeth that they never bothered him or anyone he cared about ever again.

With that in mind, he got up to set about doing so.

Regina grumbled, reaching for him, but he had exhausted her the night previous and she had fallen into sleep not an hour ago. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and told her that he was going for food (which was true as they had eaten her out of house and home with all the energy they’d needed to replenish). She hummed in her sleep and mumbled something inaudible, waving towards the walk-in closet she had.

Daniel crossed the room and righted a toppled chair. They had knocked it over the night before in their hurry to find themselves in bed.

Still, the damage they had inflicted with their first coupling –he did nothing to repress his grin of male satisfaction at a woman well pleased- had been repaired. Regina had spent most of the day yesterday reinforcing the entire house so that it could withstand them. The walls were now lined with steel under the repaired velvet wallpaper, the bed now entirely a shining dark metal and buffered from the wall and Regina had been working on controlling her magic when she was at her most excitable.

This had of course meant a lot of experimentation and repetition to make sure she had the technique down.

She had also left the hallway in a state of wilderness. The cream carpet replaced with a lush blanketing of meadow flowers and verdant green grass. It smelled of spring and –when he’d asked her why- she’d said it was high time she’d had something that was growing in her life rather than simply existing.

Daniel smirked at the words, at her tentative hope. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that he was there to stay, that he had survived Hyde and that he wasn’t going to be beaten that easily. It would take time but that was now something they had in spades.

His smile broadened when he walked into the closet and found his clothes hanging there. She had apologised the day before about no longer being the type to ask permission for anything. Considering she had been astride him in the bathtub at the time, Daniel had been in a forgiving mood. He was just glad that the things she wasn’t asking for were his presence in her life and that it be a permanent thing.

Daniel shook himself out of his pleasant reveries. If he continued on that vein, he’d just be back in bed with her before he knew what was happening and then who would pick a fight with the fey?

He hurriedly picked out his clothes and stole into the bathroom.

He also needed to be gone before she came too and didn’t ask to keep him out of harm’s way all day.

She might be a queen, she might have this whole equality of the sexes thing going on in this realm and she might be a pretty damn powerful sorceress but _he_ was the man and he wouldn’t hide behind her skirts.

Perhaps it was cowardly not to tell her that to her face but he had ever been of the opinion that it was better to ask forgiveness rather than permission.

Daniel was showered and out of the house before she even rolled over into the cold spot he’d left behind in the bed and even then she didn’t wake.

She was very tired, after all.

 

**_In Town_ **

 

Daniel’s first stop was Granny’s because he _was_ hungry and he did want to check on the old woman. She had been nothing but kind to him and Regina now called her family so he supposed testing his reception with them first was the best idea.

It was early, stupid early, and that suited him fine. The streets were all but deserted and he took the less travelled route so he arrived at the diner unmolested. He cautiously pushed into the restaurant with a jangle from the bell overhead and Ruby caught sight of him first.

He stilled, uncertain of his welcome when she simply stared at him.

He needn’t have worried.

“Danny-boy!” Ruby actually hurdled the bar, a grin stretching across her face, and threw herself into his arms, laughing.

Daniel was a little stunned by the affection but caught her loosely anyway. Not knowing what to do when she bussed a kiss to his cheek and hugged him tightly.

She seemed to realise how uncomfortable he was and backed off in a hurry.

“God, sorry.” She sidled from one foot to the other, though still smiling, her hands clasped behind her back to keep from hugging him again. “The wolf is really strong still. Learning how to change all the time, it’s difficult to keep her quiet. I guess the family thing that Granny did now extends to you too. Being Regina’s and all.” Ruby shrugged helplessly. “Wolves are big on pack and mine’s been lonely for quite a while. I guess I’m just greedy for family.”

“Well, that’s something I can sympathise with. No harm done.” Daniel managed a lopsided smile. “And now I definitely know someone still likes me.”

“Course we do!” Ruby looked offended that he would think otherwise. “Admittedly, you suit this look better than you do the shark-faced-people-eater shtick, but even then you looked good in a tux.”

“Good to know.” Daniel followed Ruby when she waved him towards the bar.

Grumpy passed them, head down, not making eye contact, and hurried out of the diner. Daniel turned to watch and wondered if he should do something about it.

“I wouldn’t worry, Grumps knows better than to risk his chances of ever getting Granny’s lasagne again by badmouthing you.” Ruby reassured him and dusted off one of the barstools needlessly. Daniel took the hint and sat.

“Speaking of; how is she?”

“Granny? She’s fine. Doctor Towers gave her a once over, said she had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for but Granny seemed nothing more than tired.” Ruby tried to keep her tone light but her relief was evident. “She’s been resting the last couple of days –which is driving everybody crazy. I’ve been pulling doubles just to get away from her.” Ruby leaned in and spoke to him like a co-conspirator.

Daniel smiled somewhat absently and studied her.

“You’re really not afraid, are you?”

“Of you?” Ruby hopped up onto her own stool. Daniel had frightened the rest of the customers away and –for now- that didn’t bother Ruby. “Why would I be?”

“Hyde?”

“He’s in you Daniel but he isn’t _you._ ” Ruby shrugged a shoulder. “I know a little something about having a monster inside you and I know how much it means to have someone sit beside you all casual like and _know_ that it doesn’t make you a monster too.”

“Your wolf isn’t a monster.” Daniel shook his head.

“Not now.” Ruby shrugged and looked down at her suddenly fidgeting hands. “That wasn’t always the case though. I did some pretty bad things before I learned control.” Ruby snorted and tossed her head, flipping her hair back from where it had fallen over her face. “I did some truly _awful_ things when I could control the wolf too. It wasn’t just my hood that made me Red at times.”

Daniel blinked at her and she tilted her head, smiling.

“Of course, you don’t know anything about it. You weren’t there.”

“It turns out that being dead cuts into your observational skills quite a bit.” Daniel nodded, the shade of a smirk hooking his mouth. “It’s hell on the social life too.”

Ruby laughed, her eyes dancing with amusement.

“It’s easy to see why she dotes on you.”

“Regina?”

“I know of no other woman that hangs on your every word and watches your every move. Daniel, she’s got _spies_ for you.” Ruby leaned in, smiling, but stopped herself from touching him.

 Her wolf read him as another wolf, part of her pack, but Daniel didn’t feel the same way. For werewolves, touch was who they were, it expressed for them in a way plain words couldn’t. Learning to change without the moon had several fantastic advantages, but it made Ruby’s wolf a lot bigger in her head. A lot harder to ignore.  

“She does not!”

“Does too!” Ruby laughed and sat back again. “Rachel –Doc Towers- was talking to me about it yesterday. She had to report to Regina morning, noon and night when you first came back and Rachel is pretty damn sure that she wasn’t the only one on the mission –as it were.”

“Really?” Daniel frowned.

“Y’see, even when you thought she was pushing you away, she was all over you.”

Daniel smirked. Well, she had certainly been all over him the last two days.

“Okay, stop.” Ruby held up her hand. “You REEK of sex as it is, you thinking about it does not tone it down.”

Daniel blinked and then laughed.

“I’d apologise but…I’m not sorry.”

“Typical, the one man in this town who might be able to take my pace and he’s taken.” Ruby waved at him and glanced about as if for an audience that might sympathise with her. “By my sister no less.”

“About that,” Daniel shifted in his seat and tried to break the subject gently, “how much do you feel that?”

“That you’re my brother-by-another-mother?” Ruby tilted her head. “Quite to very.”

Daniel arched a brow and she laughed at him. He noticed that she laughed so easily, despite everything that had happened to her, despite the danger that lived under her skin, despite now having to call one of her mortal enemies family. She laughed.

“I know, right?” Ruby tunnelled her fingers through her hair and huffed out a breath. “It’s weird for me too. I mean, up until I few weeks ago, I might have eaten her myself had I been given the opportunity but now…I don’t know. It just feels right. I know it’s magic, I know –in my head- that I should be freaking out and I _am_ wary of it but…the wolf feels like it’s right. It’s a mess, Regina’s the woman that made a hobby out of trying to skin my best friend and mount her head on a wall, and when Snow gets back I’m going to have to try and explain to her that Reggie and I are more than just pals, we’re family.”

Ruby trailed off and bit her lip.

“Are you going to defend her or blame her?”

“Blame her for what?”

“For this connection forged between you. Neither of you asked for it. It would be easy to blame it on Regina so as to not have to explain to Snow that you actually like Regina.”

“Hey, no,” Ruby sliced her hand through the air, getting mad, “nuh-uh. Snow is my friend and I love her dearly but Snow has _everybody_. When she comes back, I’ll bet that David’s going to start answering to Charming again, Emma’s going to steal Henry away and then it’ll just be me, you and Granny on team Reggie so –no- I won’t be blaming her for diddly. She’s my sister-by-another-mister. I’m not going to forget that even if she wants me to.”

“’Team Reggie’?”

“I’m having tee shirts made.” Ruby shrugged and eyed him for a long moment. “You were ready to step in and get all manly and overprotective, weren’t you?”

“Maybe a little.” Daniel smiled. “Regina’s family to date haven’t exactly been… _loyal._ ”

Ruby watched him for a long and unblinking moment and sighed.

“Not your story to tell, huh?”

“Even I don’t know the whole of it. Suffice to say that –from what I do know- it’s a good thing both her parents are dead and gone. Her mother in particular I wish all the crows and carrion eaters of any and all realms to feast on her mouldering corpse.” Daniel shrugged off the black words. “She believes –correctly- that it would eat at me to know things that I cannot change nor seek vengeance for. She doesn’t want me to feel the same hatred she did. Does.”

“That’s my girl,” Ruby planted her elbows on the bar and propped her chin up in her hands, “so convinced she’s the darkest there is that she can’t see that the rest of us would kill people with our faces if they so much as looked at her funny.”

“It’s not her they’re going to be looking at.” Daniel ran his fingernail along a worn smooth scar on the bar top. “They’ll come for me. I’m weaker than she is.”

Ruby frowned at him and then slowly arched a brow.

“Really? That’s what you think?”

“No.” Daniel spoke with care. “That’s what _they_ think.”

“I’m supposing you’ve come to me with a plan on how to rectify such an egregious error in judgement.” A slow grin began to spread over Ruby’s mouth.

“Werewolves were viewed as the strongest most terrifying monsters in all the realms back home and _you_ leashed yours. I want you to teach me how.”

“Hyde’s not a wolf.” Ruby shook her head but she had straightened up from leaning on her elbows.

“But he is more animal than man.”

“Hyde thinks in ways much more complex than a wolf. He can walk and talk, wear clothes and –made evident by his being in the Enchanted Forest to begin with- was smart enough to find a way to cross worlds. He’s a product of science, not magic.”

“If you go far enough in either field the difference between the two becomes negligible.” Daniel leaned forward with his urgency. “I’m convinced this can be done. Regina won’t even consider it. She wants to lock Hyde away and never let him out but I believe –aside from that being unhealthy for both of us- that Hyde can be let out and he can be put to use.”

“Uses like…eating faeries?”

“Only if they try and eat me first.”

“Wait,” Ruby held up a finger, “I’ve seen this movie. They try and turn the big green dude into a weapon and then he gets _mad_ and trashes Utah.” Her voice went flat. “It didn’t end well.”

“Ruby, I _know_ that this can be done.”

“And how do you know that?” Ruby challenged him. “Do you feel it in your bones? Your heart? _Hyde’s_ heart? How do you know this isn’t exactly what he wants?”

“Because it might be his heart but it’s my body and he can’t stay out forever.”

“It took him seconds to break Blue into little itty-bitty pieces. She’s STILL recovering in hospital and she’s freaking magical! He doesn’t have to be out long to cause masses of damage.”

“There’s got to be a way to control him.”

“Why? Because you really, REALLY, want there to be?”

“Yes.”

Ruby huffed out a long sigh and looked away from him. Daniel waited. He’d gain nothing by pushing at her further. She was only likely to push back. She looked at him out the corner of her eye.

“You’re going to do this with or without me, aren’t you?”

“I won’t have Regina fight my battles for me.” Daniel nodded.

“I still don’t think you know what you’re getting into.”

“I was there.” Daniel shrugged. “I know what he’s capable of. I felt Blue’s spine crack.”

“No, I don’t think you know what you’re getting into with _Regina_ and Hyde.” Ruby clarified and hopped down off her stool, skirting the bar to rummage beneath it. “You might have been a passenger but you obviously didn’t see what the rest of us saw.”

Ruby reappeared with a sheaf of paper, newspapers they called them, and handed it to him.

Daniel frowned but furled it open. His brows rose when he saw the painting –photograph- that took up most of the front page.

Regina.

Regina and Hyde.

It had been taken as Hyde had lunged for her throat. In full colour and crisp detail it showed off Regina’s draconian dress (the Smock of Smaug, she had called it). The glitter of the gold and gems in the bodice, the gleam of the talons riding the neckline, the shadow of her plunging cleavage…and the heat crawling up her neck due to Hyde’s proximity.

The image had been cut so that the main focus was Regina and Hyde was so large in comparison that only his head, neck and the torrent of his mane could be seen of him as he had stooped to her level. His great jaws were parted, those sharpened pearl teeth bracketing the slim column of her neck and the tiniest bead of crimson welled from his coal black skin against the tip of that wicked little knife of hers.

None of it could hope to compare to the heat arcing between the two of them. Their eyes had met, both gleaming with magic or science. Regina’s were heavy lidded, her pupils dilated so that they were mostly black rimmed with purple. His sparked a lurid green and his massive hand rested over her breast, silvery claws glinting against her flushing skin.

It looked as erotic as it did dangerous and the picture made it perfectly clear that –not only had the queen known Hyde back in the Enchanted Forest- she _knew_ him.

Daniel knew that not to be true but Regina herself had told him that the only thing that had stopped her had been the mechanical incompatibility of it.

“So…that’s what he looks like from the outside.” Daniel managed to murmur.

“And that’s how she reacts to him.” Ruby needled. “You still wanna let him out where your woman can see him?”

“Hyde is the Evil Queen’s, not Regina’s. I’m not worried.” Daniel took another glance at the newspaper, noting the headline – ** _Where Did They Go and What Is She Doing to Him?_** \- and turned back to Ruby.

“Wow, your relationship is getting crowded.”

Daniel glared at her and she just smirked at him.

“I’m adorable.” She reminded him.

“Not _that_ adorable.”

“Aw, come on, Danny-boy. You get why I’m wary, right?”

“I understand,” Daniel nodded, “do you understand why this has to be done?”

Ruby huffed a sigh and looked away from him again. She twisted her mouth and mulled it over. Finally she met his eyes.

“She’s gonna kill me.”

“We don’t have to tell her right away. It’ll be better if I go to her with a plan. She likes plans.”

“The more crafty and conniving the better.” Ruby murmured in agreement, propping her chin on her hand again. “It’s gonna have to be sneaky.”

“Underhand.” Daniel nodded.

“Cunning.” Ruby added.

“With a hint of malice.” Daniel held up his thumb and forefinger to show just a pinch was needed.

“And we can’t lie.” Ruby realised. “She might forgive us for sneaking around and planning and experimenting with this non-existent border between magic and science…but she won’t forgive us lying. Well, she might, but she’ll certainly never forget.”

Daniel smirked.

“You know her pretty well.”

“Well, spend years trying to kill someone and you become surprisingly intimate.” Ruby waved her hand as if to downplay it and Daniel just shook his head.

At times, he was sorry he’d missed all the adventuring between his death and resurrection.

“I’m glad you’re going to stick by her.”

“Hey, that’s what family does.” Ruby smirked. “You do what’s best, even if it means getting a little banged up while you’re doing it.”

They shared a smile and neither of them had any idea of how serious some of Regina’s family took those words.

They were certainly about to find out.

 

**_Across Town…_ **

****

That picture in the paper had been the bane of Henry’s life.   

He’d had to put up with the whispers, the giggles and the staring all day yesterday. He had gone home to David being unable to look at him. Then he had tossed and turned all night, trying not to cry like a baby about the stupid nightmares, and all he wanted – _all_ he wanted- was for people to forget about that dumb picture of his mom and Mister Hyde.

He was tired, sore, he felt hungry all the time because he didn’t want to risk eating something and then barfing it up again and people kept STARING. Whispering behind their hands to one another. Pointing and giggling. Making comments _just_ below his hearing and acting all innocent when he asked them to repeat themselves.

Then again, considering the look on his face when he did so, it was little wonder that no one wanted to prod the grumpy bear.

Henry was used to it. To a certain extent anyway. Being the son of the Evil Queen AND the Saviour tended to garner a lot of attention, but it had never been so…malicious as today.

Henry hiked his backpack higher against his shoulder and his hand tightened on his art project in his hand. He was doing a big comic book poster and his mom had bought him one of those poster tubes with the handle on it to transport his drawings. It was decorated with the Incredible Hulk.

It was one of his favourite things.

“Damn, I know she’s evil, but she sure looks tasty.”

Henry ground to a halt at that sound and felt something hot and sour pour into his stomach. He turned to see who had spoken.

“He’s a freaking animal!”

A group of older kids lounged by their lockers, holding court. One of them held a scrap of newspaper and Henry didn’t need to see the other side to know what was on it.

“He acts like a man.” One of the girls in the group laughed and leaned over the biggest boy’s shoulder to look at the photograph. “I wonder what it’s like? With magic, I mean.”

“I’d like to find out.” The first boy laughed cruelly.

“Oh please,” the second one chimed in again, looking disgusted, “she’d eat you alive.”

“What a way to go.”

The group laughed. Loud and obnoxious and Henry’s fingers white knuckled on his poster tube.

It was one thing to know his mom was evil, to _know_ that her reputation was well deserved, Henry didn’t expect everybody to like her like he did because they just didn’t know her like he did but they should all…they should all _damn_ well respect her.

“I’ll bet she’s a screamer.” The first boy looked admiringly down at the scrap of newspaper in his hand and then turned to his locker. He opened it and Henry could see several pictures of naked women pinned there.

Something reared in Henry, something big and hot and fierce and bigger than anything he had ever felt before.

“Don’t you dare put that there.”

Henry blinked at the growl that had just come out of him. He hadn’t even realised that he had crossed the hallway, but he stood in the middle of the group, his neck craned back so he could look this…this _asshole_ in the face.

The kid was older than him. About four years older than him. He played on the football team. He was tall and popular and cocky and Henry had never more wanted to punch someone’s teeth straight down their neck.

“Well, well, look who it is. The golden child himself.” The boy glanced about his peers and then deliberately reached out to pin the picture, the picture of Henry’s _mother,_ into his locker door next to all those centrefold women.

Henry had never understood the expression about blood boiling but he did then. It raged through his veins and he stepped forward, reaching towards the locker, intending to take the photo and destroy it.

The older kid shoved out with the heel of his hand and stopped Henry, punting him backwards into a stagger.

“Jimmy, leave it. He’s just a kid.” The girl, the one who had liked the way Hyde had shown manners, rested her hand on Jimmy’s arm, but he shook her off.

“No. He’s not untouchable just because who his mom is. Either of them. Evil Queen or Saviour, kid, you’re nothing special to me.” Jimmy sneered at Henry and turned away.

“One way or another, that picture’s leaving your locker and you’re never going to look at it again.” Henry’s voice would have sounded a lot more threatening if it hadn’t cracked halfway through the sentence.

Jimmy whirled on him and laughed cruelly. Henry’s face burned but he didn’t back down. People were beginning to stare.

“Jimmy.” The girl warned again when Jimmy advanced on Henry.

“Leave it, man,” the second boy spoke, “it’s his mom and she’ll turn you inside out if you lay a hand on him.”

“Let her try.” Jimmy rounded on his friends and snatched the newspaper clipping from the locker. “You know what, he’s right, I will take this out. I think it needs to go home with me. I need some new material for the shower.”

Henry’s chest heaved. He was so angry. His face burned hotter and he began to shake.

“Hah!” Jimmy pointed at him. “Lookit him! Little kiddie’s going to start crying any minute now.”

“Give me the picture,” Henry looked up at him, “and this won’t get any worse.”

“Worse? What you gonna do? Hit me with your cartoon characters?” Jimmy swaggered closer and pointed at Henry’s art project tube.

“He’s the Incredible Hulk, you dumbass. He’s a comic book character. Not a cartoon.” Henry sneered right back and there was a low ‘oooh’ from the crowd. Not many people spoke to Jimmy that way and any that did were considerably larger than Henry was.

Jimmy’s face hardened, angry spots of colour rising in his cheeks.

“You know what, I’m gonna keep this on me.” Jimmy waved the picture in Henry’s face. “I’m gonna keep this REAL close and there’s nothing you or your _comic book character_ can do about it.”

Jimmy straightened up reached for the waistband of his pants and began to stuff the newspaper clipping down them.

Henry learned the meaning of a new phrase; seeing red. His vision tunnelled until he could see nothing but the shit eating grin on Jimmy’s face and his body moved of its own accord.

Henry dropped his art tube and gripped the strap of his rucksack in both hands. He swung, he swung with every bone and muscle in his body, and roared with the effort.

“ _HENRY SMASH, BITCH!”_

Jimmy would have had a better time trying to benchpress a Buick than he would have stopping Henry’s assault.

The backpack was _heavy._ It contained Henry’s school books, his comic books, his lunchbox and The Story Book.

It smashed into Jimmy’s chin with an extremely satisfying _WHAM!_  

Jimmy was knocked clean off his feet. Not just toppled backwards but sent flying, his heels kicked up over his head and he landed hard on his back and shoulders, sprawling across the floor with a squeak. Blood poured from his shattered nose and the backpack, which had flown from Henry’s hands he’d swung it so hard, punched down onto his stomach, coughing all the air from his lungs.

There was a moment of stunned silence that bloomed throughout the corridor. Broken only by the harsh bellowing of Henry’s lungs in his chest. His entire body heaved with every breath. His ears were ringing and he trembled with the adrenaline that poured through him like hot oil.

“You little shit,” Jimmy wheezed his way to a sitting position, tried to stand, and landed flat on his ass instead. He waved at Henry, looking to his football teammates. “Grab him.”

Most of them, having no desire to whale on a kid half their size, looked down at Jimmy like he’d grown another head, but a couple of the bigger and dumber types advanced on the boy.

Henry’s eyes widened and he snatched up his Incredible Hulk poster tube, which he had dropped when he had felled Jimmy like a redwood, and bolted.

The older kids, three of them, launched themselves after him.

Henry ran, he ran as fast as he could, along the corridor, the crowding kids parting hurriedly for him and hurled himself up the stairs, but he wasn’t trying to escape.

Princes do not run when they should fight and the first thing you do when you go up against an opponent bigger than you?

Level the playing field.

Henry bounded up half a dozen steps, leapt onto the railing, spun on his heel and –with a scream that would have done any berserker proud- launched himself head on at the three kids that had barrelled after him.

Stunned at such a ballsy move, the three tried to slither to a halt, but there’s very little you can do when an angry eleven year old is flying through the air towards you with extreme prejudice. Right at that moment, not even gravity wanted to touch Henry.

He swung, hard, the tube making a thrumming sound almost like a lightsabre as it whooshed through the air, and he smashed it down onto the first kid’s shoulder, where his neck met his body.

Henry hit the floor on his feet and bounced again, tumbling with the momentum, his lessons with David having been learned well.

Right into the backhand of the second footballer. Henry was punted clean off his feet, blood filled his mouth and that just made him madder.

 He lashed out with one foot, taking out the knee of the second footballer, rolled to his feet and then smacked the poster tube over the back of the kid’s shoulders, sending him sprawling on the floor. Henry spun again, jabbing out hard and fast with the tube again and right into the gut of the third. He retched and dropped to his knees to be shoved onto his back by an angry Henry.

Just in time for Jimmy to grab Henry from behind and snatch him up off the floor.

Henry yelled when all the air was forced from his lungs and his ribs creaked alarmingly. He bucked, lashing back with his head and felt Jimmy’s teeth crunch into the back of his head when he butted him with his skull as hard as he could.

Jimmy swore. Henry did it again.

Jimmy squeezed Henry tighter until Henry gasped and kicked out. Something crackled in his chest. Struggling madly, his foot connected with the bannister of the stairwell and he pushed as hard as he could. Jimmy was sent staggering and they both sprawled to the floor. Henry, as soon as his arms were free, lashed backwards with both elbows into Jimmy’s stomach and rolled away from him.

Henry scrambled to his feet, chest heaving painfully, blood streaking him, his uniform torn and his treasured art tube mangled in his hand, but victorious.

He leaned over the older boy and snatched the scrap of paper from his belt where it was still crumpled.

Jimmy made a half-hearted lunge, grabbing Henry’s sweater. Henry’s face went granite hard and he stomped, with all his weight, right into Jimmy’s crotch.

Which was exactly what the teacher saw when she rounded the corner and waded into the children cheering on the fight.

 

**_The Hospital_ **

 

“Where is he?!”

“Ack!” Rachel staggered back in surprise and dropped the telephone handset so it clattered against the wall, bouncing on its coiled cord.

Regina surged out of the billowing purple cloud, sparks of magic singing the ceiling and walls, her teeth bared in maternal ferocity.

“Where is my son?!” Regina, completely oblivious to Rachel’s coronary, advanced on the smaller woman. “What happened?”

“Good grief, woman, give me a second.” Rachel warded her off with one hand and had the other pressed to her chest, measuring the galloping pulse there.

“No. Now!”

“As I was about to say!” Rachel went toe-to-toe with Regina because that was the only thing she respected when she was like this. “Before you teleported over here between one damn word and the next; he’s _fine_. Just a little banged up.”

“I want to see him.”

“That much I had gathered.” Rachel scooped up the handset from where it hung against the wall and settled it back into its cradle. “You want me to hold that for you?”

Regina frowned and then looked down at her hand.

“Damn. That was my favourite phone.” Regina lifted the bright red handset from her old fashioned rotary phone in her office in the manor.

 It had a little red light on top that blinked when it rang. Not anymore considering she had just amputated the cord a few inches from the handset with her teleportation. She realised then that Rachel might deserve to get a few sentences out before Regina lost her mind completely. So long as the sentences were quick.

“What happened?”

“I don’t really know.” Rachel confessed, shoving her hands into her lab coat pockets and walking along the hall to the room where she’d put Henry. “There was a fight, I know that much, but nobody’s saying anything about it. It was pretty bad –as schoolyard brawls go- but it looks a hell of a lot worse than it is.” Rachel spoke firmly, watching Regina to make sure she was taking it in and not just nodding.

A lucid woman looked back at her –as far as Rachel could tell- so she supposed that would have to do. She sucked in a deep breath and got the worst of it over with.

“He’s bleeding from the head, but it’s minor!” Rachel hurried to tack on when Regina’s eyes literally flashed with anger. “His ribs may – _may_ \- be cracked and he’s littered with cuts and bruises.”

Regina’s jaw was a line of granite, her chest heaving with the fierce to desire to start ripping organs out –perhaps without the aid of magic- and she struggled to focus on Rachel’s words and formulate a reply that wasn’t an animal snarl.

“Is there any good news?”

“He’ll recover before his suspension is up.” Rachel nodded and her mouth twisted so that she didn’t smirk. “That and he looks a hell of a lot better than the other kids.”

“Kids?” Regina snapped. “Plural?!”

“Four.” Rachel nodded. “All of them older and –by all accounts- Henry beat ‘em like a drum.”

Regina rocked back on her heels when Rachel drew to a halt outside a private room. She mulled that over.

“Four?”

“Twice his size.” Rachel nodded and shrugged. “Henry assures me it was an off day for him.”

Regina finally smiled. Rueful and worried and a little bit proud, a mother’s smile. Her son really was okay if he was joking like that.

“Okay, you calm enough not to go into terrifying maternal tank mode? Mother Claws retracted? Good.” Rachel made a show of looking at Regina’s hands. “Now, I’ve given him a tetanus, cleaned his cuts and scrapes and given him an ice pack for his head.”

“Tetanus?”

“He got a fight bite. Apparently your own head is now widely regarded as an acceptable weapon in a brawl.” Rachel waved it away. “Make him keep the ice on his head until the swelling goes down and I’ll be back to check on him and make sure it doesn’t need stitches. Maybe strap up his ribs.”

“Why not do that now?” Regina waved at the door.

“Well, firstly, he might tell you what happened if I’m not there and, secondly, I have to phone David and let him know too.”

“You called me first?”

“Yeah. You’re his mother.” Rachel shrugged. “You’re his next of kin and I also didn’t want to be the one to explain to you that you had been the second to know.”

Regina managed a half smirk.

“I’m…sorry.” Regina fiddled with the curling cord of the remains of her phone. “For scaring you.”

“I wasn’t scared.” Rachel quickly corrected her.

Regina arched a brow.

“I was startled.” Rachel nodded and Regina smirked again.

She liked Rachel.

“Now, go see your boy. Find out why he beat someone up with comic book characters.”

Regina frowned at that but Rachel had already turned to head back to the phone.

Regina huffed out a breath to steady herself. If Henry was at all nervous about her being angry with him (which she was, for the way he had scared her) then she wasn’t going to help by going in there panicked. When she felt calm enough, she opened the door and poked her head inside.

“Henry?”

“Mom?” Henry twisted to look at her.

Regina left calm and collected at the door. She ran towards Henry when she saw him sitting holding an ice pack to his cheek with one hand and a towel to the back of his head with the other. She reached up to touch his face but stopped herself when she saw the damage there.

A horrible feeling took up residence in the pit of her stomach, spurred into being by the sight of her son in a hospital bed. Number one on her list of Things Never to See Again.

“Who did this to you?” She demanded and ticked off his injuries.

Blood spotted the towel on the back of his head, more of it stained his mouth and teeth. He had an angry welt on one cheek and the beginnings of a serious black eye on that side of his face. His uniform was torn, one of the sleeves of his sweater hanging almost to his elbow, his shirt collar spotted with blood and he sat uncomfortably, hunched over the art tube that she had given him. Yet more red marked that and it was smashed almost completely in two. Crumpled beyond use, his art inside torn.

Regina lifted her hands, glared at the phone and tossed it onto the bed beside him. Magic thrummed over her fingers and she ran her hands over him, scanning carefully. Her rage at whoever had done this was subsumed by the desire to make it better. She’d start pulling fingernails later.

“You have cracked ribs.” She admonished him. “That cut’s going to need stitches.” Her hand hovered over the icepack on the back of his head.

“I’m not sorry.” Henry told her on no uncertain terms and she rocked back a little, her brows raised, lowering her hand. “I won’t apologise to them.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to.” Regina said slowly.

“Oh.” Henry deflated a little. “Good.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“Not really.”

Regina mulled that over. A few weeks ago, she’d have made demands. She’d have cajoled and threatened and driven herself crazy over it.

Huh. She really had changed.

“Honesty goes both ways.” She reminded him gently and he looked stubbornly away from her.

He looked down and studied the art tube in his hands.

He mumbled something.

“Henry, look at me and tell me.”

“I fought some kids.” He spoke from behind gritted teeth. Regina decided to play dumb with how much she already knew.

“How many?”

“Four!” He looked up at her defiantly. “Well…the ass-hat and then the other three.”

“Language.” Regina rebuked him mildly.

“It’s the nicest thing I can think to say about him.” Henry gave an adorable little growl and Regina decided not to share with him that she thought he was so cute when he was angry. “He whined so much they brought him to the hospital too. Wimp.”

“And where are the others?” Regina realised she was going to have to pluck the details from him one by one. She pressed the ice pack back against his head in the meantime.

“They just got sent home. None of them were bleeding and I didn’t hit any of them in the face.” Henry looked away from her again. “I did kind of make one of them puke though.”

“How on earth did you do that?”

“I hit him in the gut.” Henry fidgeted with his art tube. “I ruined it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. We can fix it.” Regina dismissed it and continued in a lighter tone when he continued to look miserable. “With glue and more comic books. Maybe some kind of papier-mâché deal. We haven’t done that since you were in grade school. Which is where I would have expected you to leave these kind of antics.”

Not that he had ever gotten into a fight before.

“He started it.” Henry sulked. “I’m not apologising.”

“I can see that.” Regina heaved a sigh. “Henry, you don’t _have_ a temper. What I really want to know is how you could have been goaded into a fight with four children twice your size.”

Something occurred to her. One of the reasons she hadn’t liked the idea of David teaching him to be a ‘prince’.

“Were they picking on someone else?”

“No.”

“I understand what it’s like to want to hurt someone to protect somebody you like, Henry. You can tell me, I won’t be mad.”

“Oh, I think you will be.” Henry dabbed at his mouth with a clean bit of the paper towels. He tested his split lip with his tongue but didn’t wince.

“It can’t be that bad. He’s just a boy. You lived with an Evil Queen for a decade, I’m surprised anyone else can shock you.” Regina took the ice pack away and soothed some magic over the wound to check the swelling had gone down to her satisfaction.

“You were never evil to me.”

Regina looked down in surprise when she found Henry’s hand around her wrist. He squeezed gently to let her know he meant it and then went back to probing his teeth with his tongue to make sure none of them were loose.

Regina moved the now sloshing ice pack to his cheek and eye and just stood with him. Enjoying being close to him and recovering from her near heart attack when she had heard that Henry had been taken to the hospital.

“He was talking about you and Mister Hyde.”

Regina frowned a little but didn’t say anything.

“About the picture in the paper.”

Now Regina really was lost.

“What picture in the paper?”

“You _know_ , yesterday’s newspaper.” Henry was beginning to look embarrassed.

“Henry, I haven’t read the paper in days.”

Henry looked mortified at explaining this to her.

“It…it had a picture of you in your Evil Queen dress.” Henry fidgeted with his art tube intently. “Mister Hyde is trying to bite you and you have the knife at his neck. His hand’s on your…dress and…and you don’t look unhappy about it.”

“Oh.” Regina examined the split in his lip with her thumb and a small frown and then the words sank in. “ _Oh._ ”

“Yeah.” Henry clipped out. “Oh.”

“I still don’t see how my looking like an Evil Queen and having a pet monster –the scariest I’ve looked in decades- could cause someone to pick a fight with you.”

  “He said all kinds of horrible stuff. He was gonna pin your picture up in his locker with all his other…pictures.”

 Regina could well imagine what kind of pictures a fifteen year old boy might have in his locker.

“I told him to take it down, that he shouldn’t have it. He laughed at me.” Henry’s jaw clenched again. “He laughed at me, and called me a little kid, and made fun of this,” he half lifted the Incredible Hulk tube, “and…and…he was gonna stuff you in his shorts.”

Regina tilted her head. She’d never been a pin-up before. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it…a little pleased if she was completely honest.

She frowned when she realised she was now _definitely_ a cougar, if teenagers were panting after her. Daniel looked within a few years of her age thanks to the magical botox of the curse but –the fact remained—she was a world weary sixty three to his comparatively naïve twenty five.

She realised Henry was watching her carefully for a reaction. Expecting her to blow up.

“So you hit him? Because he thinks I look attractive?” Regina smirked. “Henry, I’m a fox. Lots of people find me attractive.”

“Mom!”

“What?” Regina acted innocent. “It could be taken as a compliment. Would you rather I didn’t?”

“You weren’t there.” Henry told her firmly. “You didn’t hear him. It was a lack of respect. It doesn’t matter if it was true, I know you’re pretty. He –NOBODY- gets to talk about my mom like that.”

“Alright,” Regina sensed she wasn’t changing his mind on that, “so he was going to stuff a newspaper clipping down his shorts –in a blatant disregard for the dangers of paper cuts in sensitive areas- and you hit him?”

 “I just got so… _mad_.” Henry gulped in a breath. “I just wanted to wipe that _smirk_ off his big stupid face.” He grumbled, with a mixture of missed opportunity and a little shame. “I was gonna make him eat it but then one of the teachers stopped me.”

“And –if he said the same things tomorrow?”

“He won’t.”

“If he did?”

“He _won’t_. I made sure of that.” Henry glared at her.

“Alright, in a similar situation where someone is dumber than you expect them to be –which is likely- and someone opens their mouth and insults me again –also likely- what are you going to do?”

“Knock him over and, when I stomp on his crotch, I’ll do it _harder_.”

“You stomped on his…?” Regina’s brows made a race for her hairline and she tried desperately not to give in to the crow of laughter that was crawling up her throat. She gulped it down with difficulty.

She was distracted from giving into it by the door bursting open and David barrelling in.

“Henry! Are you alright?” David tossed the long paper wrapped package he held down on the seat by the bed and skidded to a halt beside Regina. “What happened?”

Henry looked between both adults and heaved a sigh. Really? Again?

“There was a fight for someone’s honour. Henry won. He’d do it again.” Regina summed it up, still trying not to laugh, and tended to Henry’s wound with the icepack.

It was the mental image. Her little boy Spartan kicking a burly teenager over and jumping with both feet onto the lad’s crotch. Well, she supposed that idiot strain had been removed from the gene pool.

Regina coughed suspiciously and tried to keep a straight face.

“Who’s honour? What?”

“Really, Charming, you’ve no one to blame but yourself.” Regina told him archly. “If you hadn’t insisted on teaching him chivalry, none of this would have happened.”

“I didn’t teach him to go around punching bigger kids in the head!”

“Just smaller ones?”

“You’re _enjoying_ this.”

“No. Of course not. I’m very disappointed in Henry.” Regina’s face sobered and she went back to examining Henry’s knuckles. Not a single bruise. He really had used a swordsman’s techniques. Yep, all Charming’s fault.

“Henry, your mom is right, you shouldn’t have been fighting.”

“Oh, I’m not disappointed he was _fighting_.” Regina clarified. “I’m disappointed you got caught, dear, and four against one? You’re smarter than that.”

Henry smirked.

“You should have jumped them one by one after school. Preferably in a good ambush spot.”

“Regina!”

“David!” Regina mimicked his tone. “Are you honestly going to tell me you wouldn’t have done EXACTLY the same thing had you been in Henry’s shoes? If someone had insulted someone you care about, spoken about them as if they were filth, that you wouldn’t have fed them their words followed by your fist?”

“Violence isn’t the answer.”

Regina threw back her head and laughed. She sobered just as quickly.

“That’s hippy, liberalist, twaddle and you know it.”

“I mean it.”

“Oh, absolutely, rather than declaring war on myself and George back in the Enchanted Forest, you should have just given us a big hug and sloppy kiss. That would have cleared things _right_ up.”

“Henry was in school, not the Enchanted Forest. The boy he was fighting was not intent on slaughtering him and everyone he held dear.”

“And Henry didn’t put any of those boys in front of a firing squad or throw swords at them. All in all, I think he’s doing better than any of us.”

“He still shouldn’t have picked a fight.” David shifted uncomfortably. She was right and her arched eyebrow told him she knew it. His next defence was weaker but more truthful. “That’s what Emma would say. Henry’s her son too.”

“Emma’s not here and –if none of us want to be whined at incessantly about rules that do not apply to our way of life- she’ll never find out.”

“I don’t want to lie.” Henry said.

“Fine. I’ll do it. I have the most practice.” Regina shrugged and rolled her eyes when both Henry and David looked at her with pleading eyes. “Alright! Less of a lie and more of a…reluctance to share information. If Emma ever puts me on the spot and asks me directly if you ever thrashed four children much older than yourself and hospitalised one of them then I shall –of course- tell her the full story…though I’m sure no-one here will be bursting at the seams to tell her of such an event. Will they?”

Henry examined his toes. David rubbed at the back of his neck and looked out the window.

“I thought as much.”

“If it helps, David,” Henry offered, “I’m sorry you’re mad at me.”

David looked down at his grandson for a long moment and then chuckled. He reached out and rested his hand gently on Henry’s shoulder, not knowing what was sore and what wasn’t.

“It’s alright, Henry. Just…no repeat performances, okay?”

“I promise not to get caught again.”

David scowled and glared at Regina but she had her lips pressed together –doing a semi-decent job of hiding her smile- and was looking intently at the ceiling.

“So, what you got there?” Henry sought to break the tension and pointed to David’s parcel that he had abandoned on the chair.

“Hmm? Oh, it’s something I had made for George.” David moved to pick it up and plucked the twine binding the brown packing paper around it open. “I figure…he doesn’t seem so bad as a wolf and wolves like to run.”

Regina rolled her eyes at his bleeding heart but there was a hint of a smirk about her mouth. She was constantly surprised –and a little envious- that Charming had seen all the horrors she, George and the others had to offer and still found it within himself to muster kindness for them. She knew she didn’t have that same capacity. Had George not changed inwardly as well as physically when she had turned him into the wolf, she’d have ripped out his heart and fed it to him.

She did not forgive and she was not a fan of second chances.

Still, her brows rose when she saw what David had commissioned for the wolf.

“Geppeto’s?” She stepped forward, examining the artistry, such skill. It had to be the puppet maker’s.

It was a leg. A beautifully carved wooden prosthesis for George’s missing limb. A silvery wood, inlaid with curls and swirls of red gold and silver. The paw was tipped with steel claws. It was definitely wood, but Geppeto had gone so far as to carve the texture of fur in places and it looked very much like it could easily spring to life as Pinocchio had. Finely tooled leather straps and brass buckles attached the leg and would presumably hold it in place on George himself. The inside of the socket that would fit around the stump of his truncated limb was lined with the fleece of a sheep.

“How much?” Regina raised her eyes to David’s.

“It’s nothing.”

“David, that is a work of art, it had to have taken the man days working round the clock. The price is mine to pay. How much?”

“He did it for free. Because I asked him to.”

Regina hummed in the back of her throat. That sat incredibly ill with her. She made a mental note to do something nice for the woodcarver…as soon as she actually got a handle on what ‘nice’ was.

“It will probably be best if you let me put it on him.”

“Yeah, Ruby had to practically sit on him while we were measuring him for it. He doesn’t like me as much as he likes you.”

“Of course not. You’re nowhere near as pretty as I am. Ask Henry.” Regina smirked and was saved from David’s rebuke by a knock on the door.

It opened and a cautious nurse poked her head in, looking more than a little relieved to find Prince Charming there to ride herd on the Evil Queen.

“Yeah?” David prompted her when she just stared at them all.

“I, uh, Doctor Towers sent me.”

Regina and David shared a glance when that appeared to be the sum of the message.

“And?” Regina tried to sound as friendly as possible. Obviously she needed to work on it judging by the way the nurse paled so dramatically.

“She asked me to ask you if you’d come and see her?”

No one was more surprised than Regina when the request was directed at her.

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing to do with Henry.” The nurse added quickly. “It’s with regard to another matter.”

Regina frowned and glanced at David again. He shrugged at her and Regina saw no reason not to grant the request. She did owe Rachel several favours as it was, paying them back sooner rather than later suited her fine.

“I’ll be back soon,” Regina said to Henry, kissing him on the forehead. She turned to David. “Wait for me?”

“Sure.” He nodded.

Regina left with the nurse, who kept looking back at her as if expecting a fireball to the back at any minute.

Regina ambled along behind her, looking as non-threatening as she knew how –another thing she had yet to master- and followed her up the stairs into the intensive care ward. Her curiosity grew with each step. Especially when she was led through the ward to one of the partitioned private rooms. Rather than the glass walls being open to reveal whoever was inside, they curtains were drawn tightly closed so no hint was given as to what lay within.

Regina’s pace slowed and she frowned a little but she didn’t ask questions.

“Doctor Towers is inside.” The nurse, still too terrified to be planning anything harmful to Regina, opened the door to the dim room and held it for her.

Regina stepped inside, senses stretched taut and ground to a halt when she found the room _filled_ with faeries.

Every one of them held a wand glowing with magic.     

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am appeased by the grovelling. :D
> 
> Also, going to have to get my updates rolling so my version of future characters in the show are introduced before canon verse. 
> 
> Not that I really give a fuck about the canon versions but...well, I want mine out there first :D. No doubt you'll like my version better than the other two writer's anyway ;)
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter 25 - Amputees**

 

“ _Fey!”_ Regina spat.

  She took the room in at a glance, seeing nothing but faeries and then Rachel’s face amidst the throng. She reacted on instinct.

Her hand was on fire, a firebomb the size of her head palmed in an instant and she hauled back, ready to unleash hell.

“Wait!”

Regina stalled when a young fey –the pink one she thought- ran forward and put herself between Regina and Rachel.

Regina’s teeth ground.

“Move.” She snarled.

“No. Wait, please, this isn’t what you think!” The pink faerie (Star? Sunshine? Sparkle?) held both hands up, empty of wand or dust, and implored Regina with those huge Bambi eyes she had.

Regina’s chest heaved and she went to war with herself. The instinct to kill, to destroy and pick through the wreckage afterward to get answers, pounded in her head like a drum. A war beat echoed by the galloping of her heart.

Then again, the fey didn’t step into the path of certain death.

Blue might have been a challenge to Regina, because she was their queen, their leader, older even than the Dark One. Perhaps even older than the Dagger. The fey as individuals? Not a problem. She’d pop them like corn and not even break a sweat. What they had going for them was numbers.

A disadvantage that Regina, silhouetted alone in the doorway, felt keenly then.

“Please, we mean you no harm.” The pink faerie didn’t approach but she didn’t back down either. “We need your help.”

Regina frowned, the firestorm hovering over her palm dimming a little.

Faeries didn’t ask for help either.

Regina snuffed the flame in her hand, lowering it to her side. The bones still glowed orange hot from within her flesh –making it clear that she could roast anyone at a moment’s notice- but she tried to look at least civil enough to listen.

“Thank you.” The pink faerie clasped her hands in front of her chest and smiled. It was a nice smile.

It made Regina uneasy. She knew _exactly_ what the fey were capable of and they’d grin all the while as they did it.

“Rachel,” Regina murmured, “come away from there.”

“Hmm?” Rachel lifted her head from what she had been doing. Unknowing or uncaring of the danger she found herself in. Regina supposed she had a patient and she supposed it was Blue, but she needn’t take her damned oath so seriously. “Why?”

“Because if you don’t I’ll pluck the wings from every fey in here to get to you.” Regina’s voice was tight. Her ferocity was not easily leashed at the best of times and especially not when someone she…she cared about was in the middle of a pack of predators.

“Fair enough.” Rachel murmured after studying Regina’s face for a long moment. She sidled away from the bed, nudging her way through the throng of faeries until she could stand at Regina’s side.

She rolled her eyes when the sorceress manacled her wrist in an iron grip and bodily hauled her out of the room to stand behind Regina.

“I have a patient to tend, you know.”

“Quiet, mommy is talking.” Regina murmured back. She missed the flinch Rachel gave at the words and lifted her chin instead. Directing her words to the pink (gods, what was her NAME?) faerie. “Speak. Quickly.”

“Blue is dying.”

Regina blinked.

“We found her across town after Hyde threw her there. She was beaten and bloodied, the damage extensive. She should be healing, her magic forcing her to revert to her healthy form. She isn’t.”

“So?”

The pink –Nova!- faerie gulped hard and cast a look about the room when the angry fey murmured a low grumble of disapproval. Their wands grew brighter and flames licked at Regina’s fingertips in answer. If they wanted a fight, in a hospital, with sick _children_ there, they’d best be prepared to die before they could do anything more than throw glitter at her.

“Enough.” Nova’s voice was deceptively soft but Regina arched a brow when every one of the fey lowered their wands and looked away from her.

“We know yourself and Blue are not allies but there’s more to this than just you and her.” Nova tried again.

“I know. There’s Daniel too.”

“Hyde’s puppet.” One of the fey, the red one, spat.

“You can quite easily be hollowed out into a muppet yourself, dear. Don’t push it.” Regina warned her in a deceptively light tone. The red faerie looked away first. Good.

“The Blue Faerie is an important position. As head of the court, the Champion Bright,” Nova ignored Regina’s snort, “she serves as the opposite to the Dark One. That position cannot be empty. The imbalance would be…”

“Disastrous.” Regina quickly caught on. She had suspected that Blue was the opposite to Rumple. It being confirmed made a lot of pieces fall into place.

“So you’ll help us?”

“You don’t need my help. If Blue is as weak as you say, kill her yourselves.”

A shocked gasp went through the room and every single faerie took a step closer to the bed on which Blue lay out of sight of Regina. Gathering closer, protecting her. Regina frowned. Blue couldn’t have brainwashed _all_ of them, surely?

“We don’t want to kill her.” Nova alone hadn’t moved. Hmm. “We want you to save her.”

“You’re her second in line.” Regina tilted her head. “You stand to inherit the position. If you kill her now the transference will happen almost instantaneously. Problem solved.”

“I will not kill her.” Nova stated, she was trying to hide her trembling. She was so nervous about this entire thing, but she swallowed her fear, steadied herself, and carried on. “She can be saved.”

“That’s not the only reason.” Swan wasn’t the only one that could tell a liar at five hundred paces. It took one to know one.

“That’s true.” Nova didn’t elaborate and Regina settled into staring her down. Heaving in a deep breath, Nova spoke once more, admitting in front of her court what Regina was supposed was confidential information. “It doesn’t work like that. The power doesn’t transfer to the one that kills their predecessor. It can’t be like that because that’s how the Dagger works.”

Regina frowned.

“So…it could go to anyone?”

“Anyone.” Nova nodded. “To the person that champions good most fiercely. To someone already magical. To someone like…”

Nova stammered to silence when Regina was suddenly across the room, standing within inches of Nova. She sketched a circle over their heads with a finger, enclosing them in a barrier of silence.

Nova threw up her hands in a silent warning to the fey not to act, even though her own eyes were wide with fear and her chest heaved. Regina could move with heart faltering speed when she wanted to.

“Henry.” That single word was loaded with enough feeling to make Nova wince. “You think it will fall to Henry.”

“I can’t be sure.” Nova looked back at Regina, her eyes earnest. “He does seem…perfect for it.”

“You’re asking me to choose.” Regina accused her. “To choose between my love for Daniel and my love for my son. If Blue lives, she’ll come for Daniel. If she dies, her power could be free to corrupt my son.” Regina’s lips pressed together and she suddenly lost control of her mask, her eyes filled with pain. “Even I don’t deserve such cruelty as that.”

“I’m not asking you to choose.” Nova ignored the open invitation to list what Regina deserved…though none of the hardships in her life were directly the queen’s fault. No, that could be laid at Blue’s feet. “If you help Blue now, whilst _I_ am in charge of the court, I shall sign a peace accord with you. It will be wagered on Blue’s power. She will HAVE to obey it.”

Regina narrowed her eyes and they grew hard and shrewd again.

“What do you get out of it?”

“The return of my mentor and my rightful place in this world. I am not meant to be queen of the court. Everyone knows that.”

“You’re not doing too badly. In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re standing toe-to-toe with the court’s greatest threat and you haven’t flinched. Yet.”

“You’re not the only one who has more to lose from this as they have to gain.” Nova spoke quietly but her eyes never dropped from holding Regina’s gaze.

Regina measured her a long moment.

You couldn’t trust the fey. It was a universal truth. They would forever move to their own ends. They could not lie, but that was hardly the same as telling the truth. Then again…she did have a great deal to lose if there was no peace between her and the fey. She needed that peace accord, she needed to halt the possibility that Henry would come into such a vast well of strength so young. Before his own magic had even manifested. The results of it, such power, such an ageless position in the chessboard of the world…it would be devastating.

Not right away. Not immediately. She knew that –back in the day- Blue would have probably been as earnest and kind as Nova. There would have been a reason that the ether of life had chosen her as its avatar but, eons later, very little of that woman remained. You could not live forever and retain your humanity.

For humans are mortal. They fade and die. That is the way of all worlds.

“The accord will guarantee my entire family’s safety. Daniel, Henry, the wolves…Rachel and Charming. They fall under the veil of my protection. Blue will act against them at the cost of whatever I must do in order to save her.” Regina spoke hard and clipped words. “As to that, I can make no promises. I haven’t even seen what ails her. I give my word –if you sign the accord- that I will try to save her to the best of my ability, but the accord must be signed _first_. If Blue dies, you will take over the court as if nothing has changed, I can lend you the power to appear as if you wield that of the queen of the fey, and you will honour the agreement as much as if you had been Blue.”

Nova stared at her a long moment. Examining the words from every angle, then lifted her hand, empty of a wand, and proved she was a better fey than Blue had ever been.

“I so swear.” Nova’s hand filled with faerie dust.

It seemed to coalesce from the air itself. Piling up and up into her hand, spilling from her palm and between her fingers and –when she poured it from one hand to the other- a scroll of heavy parchment thumped into her palm.

 She held it out wordlessly to Regina. She accepted it carefully, her own magic dancing over it to check for traps, and she unrolled it. Her dark eyes scanned the wording. Lengthy, no clause left unexplored, but surprisingly simple. Nova showed her youth with such unambiguous phrasing. Blue never would have made the mistake of not leaving herself a bit of wiggle room but that suited Regina just fine.

The accord met all of her demands; anyone who swore fealty to Regina would be treated with respect and care from the fey court, treated as an ally the same as Regina would be. The fey could never act against Regina’s family without suffering the act being rebounded upon themselves. This accord would last for as long as the head of the faerie court held the power of the Champion Bright.

If Blue died, if the power left the court, Regina would be sworn to help Nova appear powerful enough to be a believable Champion Bright. It would be a considerable bite out of her power, but better that than handing a novice over to the fey court where they would be left to the influence of the elder fey. Nova might well _seem_ calm and reasonable, but then, Blue had always seemed to be a good and just character as well.

You could not trust the fey…not without a contract.

Regina read carefully, searching and failing to find hidden traps, and looked up at Nova, trying to read the fey with as much clarity.

“Satisfied?”

“Only once I dance on Blue’s grave.” Regina grumbled. She hated this. Hated it with a fiery and unbridled passion. She wasn’t even queen anymore, how did she always end up getting dragged into this shit? “But I shall sign.”

Regina lifted her hand and a red peacock feather quill appeared between her fingers. She arched a brow at Nova, who was going to sign first?

Nova reached up, unbuttoning her shirt collar and hauling aside the neckline of her sweater to reveal the skin beneath. Regina smothered her smirk when she saw the black lacy bra that the apparent nun wore underneath but moved quickly so as to get it over with.

A single sweeping motion streaked a line of red over the swell of Nova’s left breast. The faerie clenched her jaw but did not flinch when blood welled and Regina inked the quill with it.

Nova wordlessly turned her back on Regina, leaving the cut to stop bleeding on its own, as was the way. Regina unfurled the contract, laying it over Nova’s back and shoulder, and scrawling her signature over the dotted line. She blew softly on the blood ink to dry it, breathing her magic over it as well, and then took the contract away.

Nova turned back, huffing out a slow breath and Regina knew she’d never have done the same thing. Enclosed in Nova’s circle of power, cut off from her allies, her back to the enemy more powerful than she and a sharp implement in her hand? No. Regina wouldn’t have been able to force herself to turn away.

As it was, it was a work of effort to do it even though she knew that the most Nova might be able to do was give her a face full of dust and trigger a sneezing fit.

Regina unbuttoned the top buttons of her own shirt and allowed Nova to score the sharp quill over the flesh over her heart. She didn’t even complain when Nova’s trembling hands meant she screwed it up the first time. Nova licked dry lips and held the quill, filling it with Regina’s blood and then drew away, heaving in shaking breaths, trying desperately to control herself.

Regina might have sympathised had she not been a faerie. She looked so scared. Rightly so considering Regina could kill her once the contract was done and none of her sisters would be able to do anything about it.

Still, it took Regina a long moment to convince herself to turn away and give her back to Nova. She muscled down her panicked flinch when she felt the scroll hit her back and unfurl over her shoulder. She felt the tickle of the quill through the parchment and her shirt and –when it was done- felt a distant gong of magic bloom around them.

Regina turned back, studying Nova as she busied herself curling the parchment back into a tight scroll. She held out her hand and Nova handed the scroll over to Regina. Another thing Blue never would have done.

Regina might have felt guilty of taking advantage of Nova’s naivety had she not been fey and –as such- growing into a threat. Best to have one over her now so Regina might be able to use it against her later. Regina spirited away the scroll, jerked her elbow out and popped the silencing spell around them.

“What was that?” The orange fey demanded. “What did you do?”

“Arranged the saving of Blue.” Nova’s voice was gentle but firm.

Regina smirked, steel wrapped in fluff, that one.

“By _her?_ ” The yellow faerie demanded.

“Like you can do any better?” Regina pointedly looked at the faerie’s wand. “Or have you been holding back until now?”

“Of course not!” Yellow backed up a step when she remembered that the queen had faced Blue and survived.

“Then keep your tongue behind your teeth before I have it for a keychain.” Regina snapped and strode towards the bed on which Blue lay.

The fey scattered for her with a gratifying speed and Regina only ground to a halt when she reached the side of the bed and realised exactly what she was seeing.

“Holy gods…” The words rushed from Regina on a gusting breath and she swallowed hard, turning to look wild eyed at Nova. “Hyde could not have done this.”

“We know that.” Nova stepped forward and stood over her mentor –or what was left of her- her expression heavy with sadness. “She wasn’t this bad when we found her. She was fine for the first night, recovering, but then she just began to deteriorate. To…shrink.”

Shrink was right, Regina looked back at Blue, the faerie was half her normal size. She had withered down to an emaciated shade of herself. Her cheekbones and clavicle stood out, her eyes bruised by illness and exhaustion. Her skin was waxy and appeared paper thin. Indigo veins showed clearly through her skin and bones seemed to poke out at every angle.

Regina had never seen something look so sickly and still live.

Blue was riddled with tubes and wires. One for oxygen strung across her face and under her nose to help her breath while not doing it for her. Bags of saline and blood dripped into her. Another bag of nutrients to try and feed her through a tube. The bleeping of her heart monitor was sluggish, her blood pressure barely measurable, her breath coming in long worrying intervals. She seemed on death’s door and Regina couldn’t fathom why she had lasted this long.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Nova prodded when Regina just stood their staring.

“Rachel.” Regina called softly and Rachel hurried from the doorway. She had realised very quickly that this was a thing between the queen and the fey and her intervention would likely drop a powder keg on the bonfire, so she had kept her distance.

“Yeah?”

“This all happened within the last twenty four hours?”

“She began wasting first, lethargy, slipping in and out of consciousness. I began the saline solution and the feeding tube then…I even tried my hair. Once. She didn’t react well.”

“She started to revert.” Regina guessed and leaned closer, studying Blue’s waxy face.

“Revert?”

“Look at her, she’s lost over a foot in height as well as all her body fat, she is literally shrinking.” Regina leaned over and peeled back an eyelid, wincing at the yellow jaundice of the rolled back eye. “Her organs are beginning to shut down. The transformation is happening too slowly.”

“What?”

“Your hair.” Regina turned to look at Rapunzel. “You can feel old wounds when you use it, correct?”

“Yes.” Rachel nodded and folded her arms over her chest. She didn’t like being useless. “I couldn’t feel any in Blue.”

“No, that was all you could feel.” Regina corrected mildly, stretching her hands out over Blue’s body, magic gilding them, and went to work. “Blue’s over a thousand years old, she’s got to have more unseen scars than even I do.”

Regina ignored Nova’s glare to the rest of the fey when Regina started hovering magic over Blue’s frail form.

“Hmm.” Regina dropped her hands.

“What is it?”

“The magic here doesn’t like her.” Regina planted a hand on her hip and looked up when all that gained her was silence in response. “Can’t you feel it?”

Nova glanced at her sisters and then looked back to Regina, mutely shaking her head.

“Our wands work well enough.” Purple offered.

“Yes, you’re drugging the magic with faerie dust. Lulling it into doing your bidding. He doesn’t like it.”

“He?”

“Hmm.” Regina nodded absently, her mind fixed on other things. “Blue’s body is trying to turn back into the shape that will let it heal. Her natural form.  Being considerably smaller than her human one, she needs faerie magic to make the change. Rachel tried to help her with her hair, but that feeds off Storybrooke magic.”

“She’s having an allergic reaction?”

“Sort of.” Regina turned back to Blue. “Her body knows what it has to do, as does the Storybrooke magic, but there isn’t enough faerie dust in her to make the transformation and all of that dust means Storybrooke can’t help her do it either…aside from the fact he has no real desire to since he doesn’t like her.” Regina shrugged a shoulder.

“So she’s stuck halfway.”

“Oh, she’s still turning, that’s what’s killing her.” Regina looked up at Nova. “If she stopped, then her body would be able to adapt and begin to heal, but flesh isn’t designed to buckle and change like that. Meat and bone cannot be reformed in such a way. Blue needs to break down into pure energy because energy does nothing BUT change. She can’t become energy if there’s two opposing forces of it running rampant in her.”

“So give us her wand. That should tip the balance in our favour.”

“Her wand?” Regina frowned. Her brows rose. “That’s right, I took it.” There was no malice in her words, despite how the fey took offence, just the same kind of surprised revelation that comes from someone who’s had a lot going on and discovered that they have another problem to add to the pile.

“Yes, you did.” Nova spoke carefully. “Could we have it back?”

“Uhm…yes…as soon as I remember where it is.”

“You _lost_ it?!”

“No.” Regina spoke forcibly to Yellow. “I put it somewhere and I don’t remember where. I have been dealing with other things.”

“Like your pet monster.” Yellow sneered.

“And my son being hospitalised.” Regina snarled and Yellow got the hint. Shut up or be plucked. She turned back to Nova. “I had it in my back pocket when Hyde appeared, I changed my clothes to take dinner with him and…changed them again when I got back to the house. It should have reappeared then and it didn’t.”

Nova’s face was carefully still whilst the other fey just looked confused and worried. Regina didn’t bring it up, she’d speak with Nova in private later.

“I’ll find it, but this needs to be taken care of now. I don’t have time to go rummaging through all the pocket dimension wardrobes I have. Blue could well die before I could bring her wand back and it has been brought to my attention that her doing so would not be beneficial to me.” Regina canted forward and leaned against the railing of the bed, looking Nova right in the eye.

Nova looked down at Blue and swore softly. A ripple went through the fey, they obviously didn’t see that from their pink sister very often. If ever.

“You’re her second, the permission needs to come from you.” Regina pushed gently.

“It could kill her.” Nova met Regina’s eye, searching for a malice that just wasn’t there. Regina meant it when she said she’d prefer Blue to live rather than pay the price of her dying.

“She’s dying now.”

“She’ll be so angry with me.” Nova studied Blue’s sunken face.

“She’ll be alive to be so.”

Nova huffed out a breath. She closed her eyes and –after a long moment- nodded.

“Right.” Regina straightened and turned to Rachel. “Help me turn her over.”

Rachel, who had watched all of this with a student’s interest, hurried to help. She and Regina worked their arms under Blue’s frail form and, on Rachel’s count, rolled her onto her front. Regina peeled back the sheet and they both stilled when they saw the greasy patches on the back of Blue’s hospital gown. Rachel met Regina’s eyes in a knowing glance and Rachel subtly nodded.  

Regina steeled herself and reached out, plucking the tie at the back of the neck apart and peeling the gown away from Blue’s skin. She turned away sharply when the stench hit her with eye watering intensity. She forced her heaving stomach to do nothing more than that. She saw Rachel pale and heard Nova gasp, her hand clapping over her mouth.

One of the fey ran from the room to be sick in the nearest trashcan.

Regina took a moment to control her visceral reaction to the putrid smell coming from Blue and turned back to study the damage.

Her wings were rotting. Wet and vestigial, crumpled from her weight lying on them. They were pus yellow in colour, filmy and limp when they should have been bright and gossamer.

“What’s happening?” Nova spoke with a strength that Regina was beginning to credit her with. The rest of her sisters had retreated as far as possible from the stench of death on an immortal, but she remained.

“Something’s got to give.” Regina and Rachel, both of them more than used to the stench of death and decay from lengthy careers on the battlefield, held it together better so her voice didn’t hold as much strain. “It appears that Storybrooke is stronger than Blue. I can’t help her whilst she remains like this.”

“I thought, maybe…” Nova shook her head. “Do it. If there’s no other way, do it.”

“If there’s another way, I don’t know of it.” Regina promised her.

“Alright,” Nova sniffed, a single tear tracking down over her cheek, “take them.”

“I…” Regina took a leaf from Henry’s book. “I am sorry this hurts you.”

Nova looked up at her, surprised, but nodded once.

“Save her.”

“Alright. Stand back.” Regina turned and made sure that Rachel was several paces back and behind her before she began. “You probably should too.”

“I won’t leave her.” Nova shook her head. She turned to look at her sisters. “What you are about to see will shock and horrify you all, but remember that Regina is an ally to the court and she is NOT to be harmed. What is done is done in the name of the court and to save the life of Blue, our leader. You interfere and you shall be punished as her executioner.”

Regina’s brows rose. That was the kind of thing _she_ would have come out with. She was almost beginning to like Nova.

Nova turned back to Regina and nodded.

“Hold her down.” Regina waited until Nova rolled back her sleeves and stepped forward, one hand spanning Blue’s child-small shoulders and the other planted on her lower back. She prepared herself to fling her entire weight into restraining her mentor…because she was about to start writhing in more pain than any mortal could stand.

Regina conjured a knife and did not miss the aborted move the fey gave to stop her. They held one another back and watched with wide owlish eyes.

Purple flame erupted over Regina’s hand and she held the blade over it, into it, the fire roared hotter, becoming paler and paler with the heat and whiter as the magic was leached from the flame and into the blade.

When she was done, the long blade was a glowing, sizzling, purple. Brighter than any wand in the room. Regina approached the bed, checked Nova’s resolve, finding her jaw locked in a steely line of determination, and peeled one fetid wing from Blue’s back.

The poor bitch had four.

This was not going to be pleasant and Regina knew better than to draw it out.

With a lightning quick move, Regina slashed with the blade and cut the wing free of Blue’s back.

The faerie queen came screaming back to consciousness, her back arching, her arms flailing. Nova bore down and even Regina was forced to add her weight to restraining Blue. Smoke rose from her blackened, seared, flesh. The smell of roast pork rife in the air.

“Back!” Regina half turned when she heard Rachel approach. “Come any closer and I stop right now.”

She couldn’t see Rachel, but she heard the doctor retreat back to her corner of the room.

Regina turned back to the task at hand, she roasted the wing in her fist, burning it to nothing. She gripped another, slash, pull, sizzle, burn. Rinse. Repeat. Four times. Four times she amputated a limb from Blue and found she had no stomach for such suffering.

In the heat of battle was one thing. To kill her while she was trying to kill Regina, that was fine, but there was no sport in this. No satisfaction in crippling her enemy while she lay on her deathbed. Regina may have cost faeries their wings in the past, but they had certainly never lost them like this.

At least, she hoped not.       

Regina took the still white hot knife, though the magic had fast leaked from it into the wounds, and pressed it to the bleeding nubs that remained of Blue’s wings. She used the flat of the blade as an iron to burn them to nothing and cauterise the wounds. The bleeding stopped and all that was left was a quivering, sobbing, mess of a fey.

Regina huffed out a breath and set the knife aside. Now came the hard part.

“Help me turn her.” Regina and Nova both gently flipped Blue and Regina found herself almost nose to nose with Blue, the aged fey awake and alert enough to meet her gaze.

“Just…kill me…get it…over with.” Her frail and skinny chest heaved with each word and Regina’s jaw clenched.

“You don’t get out of it that easily.” She straightened away from her and began to gather herself. “You’re going to owe me until you pass your power on, you hateful bitch, and I’m going to grin at you every day to remind you.”

Regina clapped her hands together, rubbing them vigorously, magic sparking between them.

“Nova…please…end it.” Blue pleaded with her apprentice.

“No. This will save you. You must stay our leader for a time yet.”

“I…should have known…you would…return…to him.”

“Hush now,” Nova laid her hand over Blue’s eyes, closing them gently, “it’s nearly done.”

Regina hadn’t missed what had been said, but she was a little busy to analyse it.

Magic.

Magic poured into her.

It formed in the air around her. Gossamer strands and sparkling motes swirling into spiralling twisters touching down onto her upraised palms. A low sound, like the ringing of far off bells, began to hum through the room.

It showed in her eyes first, the whites beginning to fill with purple. Her veins were next, lit up from the inside, shining through her skin like neon, it huffed from her mouth with every breath, glowing from behind her teeth, streaming even from her nose in plumes of smoke like that of a dragon. Her hair was buffeted by an unseen wind and the bells, the bells _thundered_.

The air itself shivered with their magic. The bed frame rattling, the floor shuddering beneath their feet.

The window shattered and Rachel yelped, leaping out of the way of the flying glass. The curtains were torn away with a howling wind that roared into the room. Storm clouds gathered outside. Massive thunderheads, thousands of feet tall, smashing into one another. Preternatural lightning arcing between them, smashing down, striking the hospital again and again and again.

The lights flickered overhead, bulbs burst and sparks showered down on Regina. She didn’t seem to notice. She spoke, her words unheard under the wall of noise that was the bells and the claps of booming thunder overhead. She murmured quickly, over and over, seeming not to take a breath and then her eyes flashed open. Pure light spilling from them.

“Clear!”

Regina lunged forward and Nova leaped back.

Regina’s hands clapped down on Blue’s forehead and her chest over her heart. They both sank into her flesh to the wrist and Regina threw back her head, shouting something and it poured into Blue.

All of it, all the magic Regina could muster, slamming into Blue at once.

The faerie’s back arched, light suffused her, filled her, took her over. She became so blindingly bright that Regina was the only one that could stand to look at her. 

Silence.

Silence boomed throughout the entire town. Only the high pitched whine left in the ears of those who had been in the epicentre let them know that anything had happened at all. Regina’s harsh panting was the only sign of her exertion.

Even the window had been replaced like nothing had happened.

“It’s done.” Regina croaked, her chest still heaving. “She’ll live.”

“As what?” Orange demanded. “You took her wings!”

“And gave her life.” Regina shook off the fatigue, mentally reaching out and petting the Storybrooke magic.

It brushed against her mind like a pleased cat, purring. As far as it was concerned, it had claimed another citizen. Someone more to feed from and play with. The magic here was so young and it wanted to romp and play with her like a giant puppy made of storm clouds. Regina devoted as much time as she could to it, but her days had been somewhat full recently.

Still, she was its favourite which was the only reason she’d been able to help Blue at all. None of that power had been hers, it was all Storybrooke. She felt like she’d just ridden a rollercoaster with no seatbelt, but she had suffered no drop in power herself. She’d not be defenceless in front of the fey.

“She’s not conscious.” Nova murmured, checking Blue’s pulse with her fingers. All the magic had burned away the various tubes and wires that had riddled Blue’s body. The bed sheets had been burned away too. Her hospital gown reduced to ash and Blue had regained her human height.

She still looked like ten miles of bad road though.  

“Of course not, I just filled her with enough power to light Vegas for a month. It’s going to take her a while to adjust. Better she does it while she’s asleep, _believe_ me.” Regina shook her hair out and dusted her clothes down. The ringing in her head was beginning to lower to a manageable level.

“Can the lowly doctor approach now?”

“And you!” Regina rounded on Rachel’s sarcasm. “Don’t EVER try to stick your oar into magic like that again. Had I lost concentration trying to keep you safe I might have killed everyone in this building.”

Rachel blinked at such ferocity.

Regina mustered herself under control. “You can’t be all science and then expect to be able to help magically. When you learn to accept that hair of yours and use it as much as you would a scalpel, then we’ll talk about apprenticeship. Until then, let me do it.” Regina tugged at her shirt, straightening it to try and recover some dignity.

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

Regina glared at her, not to be so easily appeased and hummed in the back of her throat.

“What…what will happen to her now?” Yellow asked cautiously.

“She’ll recover.” Regina shrugged. “I’ll find her wand and return it to her, she will regain her magic and things will go back to the way they were.”

“Except we shall now be allies.” Nova spoke from her spot by the bed and Regina turned to study her, eyes narrowed.

“Yes. You and I will meet. Tomorrow. We’ll discuss such an alliance then. Get all the details.” Regina approached Nova and held out her hand.

Nova didn’t even hesitate, taking Regina’s hand and shaking it once. Regina spoke quietly, so only Nova could hear.

“We’ll discuss why you really made this deal then.”

Nova’s jaw clenched but she nodded.

“Good.” Regina turned to look at Rachel and spoke in a normal volume. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my son is waiting for me.”

With that, Regina sailed out of the door and left them all to wonder exactly what had just happened.

It couldn’t be that easy…could it?  

 

**Downstairs**

 

“Hey, mom, you okay?” Henry winced when he hopped down off the bed and went to Regina willingly when she held out her arms to him.

She reeked of the scent he had come to associate with magic, she trembled a little, her head bowing so she could rest her cheek on top of his head.

“I’m alright.” She whispered after a moment. “Better now.” She kissed his hair and then straightened away from him. “How are you?”

“The nurse came and stitched my head.” Henry smiled looking pleased with himself. “Six stitches. Didn’t need that much numbing either. She strapped up my ribs too.”

“So we can go home?” Regina looked up at David and he nodded.

“Couple of papers for you to sign, but yeah.”

“We need to go and see George.” Henry piped up. “He needs his leg.”

“ _I_ will go and see George. _You_ will go home to bed and rest.”

“I’m fine!” Henry insisted. “I want to see George. I want to see how he’s doing. He seemed sad the last time we went to see him.”

“We?” Regina looked accusingly at David.

“He was on the other side of the kennel the whole time.” David held up his hands. “I’m not that stupid.”

“Hmm.” Regina scowled, a little put out at missing the chance to yell at someone.

“Please, mom? I don’t want to go home to bed.”

“Why?” Regina’s voice was suddenly steel. “You haven’t been sleeping. Eating less too. Are you ill?”

Henry blanched at being put on the spot so firmly. He kept forgetting, his mom knew him through and through. He might be able to fob David and Ruby off, but they didn’t know his habits, how he looked after missing a night’s sleep.

“Out with it,” Regina demanded, “or you’ll be nowhere BUT bed.”

Henry clenched his jaw.

“Henry,” Regina softened after a moment, sinking down on her heels so she was closer to his level, “you beat up a bunch of kids twice your size today. That’s not heroic, it’s dangerous. You are becoming surly and mean. Please tell me why.”

Henry looked down at his toes and scuffed his foot over the floor. His mouth twisted, warring with himself and he finally looked up at her with something like shame in his eyes.

“I…I’m afraid.” He whispered. “I’ve been having nightmares. They won’t stop.”

Regina frowned, reaching out to take his hand, she glanced at David and the prince nodded.

“I’ll get the car.” He squeezed Henry’s shoulder on his way out the door, taking George’s leg with him.

“Tell me.” Regina urged Henry and he huffed out a long sigh.

“There’s fire. A red room. Everything’s red. It’s hot and I can’t breathe properly and…and there’s someone _there_. There’s someone with me. I wake up and I feel sick and scared. I’ve started feeling sick and scared all the time. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want the nightmares to come back.”

“Oh, honey,” Regina straightened and hugged him, “why didn’t you tell me? Or David?”

“You guys have been so busy…”

“Henry, neither of us is EVER too busy for you. We’ll drop everything for you.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t say anything. You guys are running the town now. You’re getting good and helping David and David’s looking less tired because of it and…I didn’t want to add to it.”

“You are not a burden.” Regina told him firmly. “You are my son. I will always make time for you.” She studied his face for a long moment and spoke quieter still. “I love Daniel but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you.”

She knew it was exactly what he needed to hear when his shoulders slackened a little and he tipped forward, resting his head against her shoulder.

“It’s selfish to feel like that.” He mumbled into her shirt.

“Maybe,” Regina stroked his hair, “but I feel the same way about you. I don’t like sharing, remember? It’s no wonder I never taught you how to do it.”

Henry chuckled into her neck and hugged her even though she heard him suck in a breath because it tugged his ribs.

“Can…can I stay with you tonight?”

Regina pulled back a little and looked him in the eye.

“Henry, you are always welcome. It is your home too. We’ll need to check with David though.” Regina smoothed his hair out of habit.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Regina rose her full height and rested her arm around his shoulders.

“For running away. For making it so that you have to ask permission to have me visit. I _do_ miss you.” Henry looked at his toes again and Regina’s heart twisted for him.

“Well…I suppose it had to happen anyway and –as far as David is concerned- I mind less sharing you with him.” Her mouth twisted and she sighed. “Snow and Emma are a different story. Do not expect happy families from me when they return. I’m too old and set in my ways to start liking them now.”

There was a hint of a smirk around her mouth and Henry gave a laugh, gentled so his ribs weren’t tortured. She hugged him closer to her side and led him from the room.

“Can I go and see George with you?”

Regina chuckled and gave him a brief squeeze again.

“I suppose so.” Regina muttered the last to herself. “I imagine nothing short of chaining you to the couch will keep you away.”

“That sounds about right.”

Regina shook her head but couldn’t help but smile.

 

**The Shelter**

 

“Hey, George.” David announced himself to the massive wolf in the kennel and George, his chin resting on his front paw, did nothing more than tick an ear in his direction and open one eye.

Unimpressed.

“I brought someone today.” David stepped to the gate and stood aside.

George saw Regina at the same time as he caught the base notes of her scent under all that magic. He bounded to his feet so quickly he nearly over balanced. He scrambled to keep upright and his tail wagged furiously.

“Hello.” Regina stepped closer to the wire links of the kennel cage and braced herself when David pulled open the barred door.

With a single bark, George bounded out of the kennel and reared up, planting his paw on Regina’s shoulder and dancing on his hind legs for balance, tail still wagging ten to the dozen.

Regina laughed, fending off his excited licks to her face and neck, burying her hands in his ruff and spoiling him with her affection. He yelped and whined, ridiculously pleased to see her and she murmured nonsense things to him, apologising for being gone so long.

It was a further five minutes of spoiling him before he calmed enough for Regina to allow Henry to approach.

“Behave.” She spoke firmly, not entirely sure who it was directed at more and Henry rounded the side of the cage, his eyes widening when he saw George up close for the first time.

David had made him stay at the other end of the row of kennels and he hadn’t been able to see much of the giant wolf. He was so big he would be able to nip at the bandaging around Henry’s ribs without stretching at all and broader than Henry was too. He had to weigh nearly double that of the boy and that was while missing a leg.

“He’s huge.”

“He’s a wolf, dear.” Regina smiled and Henry cautiously approached.

Regina sank down on her heels beside George and patted his rump. George obediently sat. His jaws gaped to show off shining white teeth as long as Henry’s fingers, his crimson tongue lolling with each bellowing pant.

Henry had never understood why people of this world would be afraid of regular wolves after he had heard of the gigantic werewolves of the Enchanted Forest, now he did. George –even with just three legs- would be able to leap on Henry and tear him apart had it not been for Regina’s presence.

“George, this is Henry, my son.”

George clipped his teeth together, suddenly fully attentive, triangular ears focussed on the boy and lurid blue eyes fixed on Henry’s.

Weren’t you not supposed to do that? Henry couldn’t remember, he was still dealing with being confronted with a giant wild animal with nothing to separate them save three feet of distance. Not even the paltry wire link fence of the kennel –which Henry highly suspected had only contained George because the wolf had allowed it.

“Do you want to touch him?”

Henry was surprised to find Regina speaking to George and not himself.

George was suddenly on his feet and Henry stiffened when the wolf limped towards him. He slowly padded forward, in front and to the side of Henry, his head low, watching Henry.

Henry’s neck craned to watch the wolf when he began to circle. His nose snuffled industriously at Henry’s pants and shoes, reading the scents that the boy had brought with him. He made a complete circuit, Regina watching intently the whole while, and came to a halt in front of Henry. He met Henry’s gaze again and held it for long moments. With a soft whine, George limped another step forward and laid his chin along Henry’s sternum.

Henry could only stare and something fell into place. He grinned and wrapped his arms around George’s head and neck.

“Hey.” Henry smiled and couldn’t stop. He hadn’t felt this good in days.

Across the hallway, Regina stiffened and rose to her feet quickly. She took a step forward and then stopped herself.

Well, she hadn’t expected that.

“What is it?” David made his way over to her, his back to Henry and George, and spoke so only she could hear.

“Familiar.” Regina heaved a sigh and rubbed at her forehead. “Henry has a familiar now.”

David turned to see Henry hugging the wolf, petting his ears. George remained mostly still, his chin still resting on the boy’s chest, his tail slowly wagging the only indication that he was pleased.

“Doesn’t that mean…?”

“His magic is surfacing.” Regina murmured. “We have weeks at most.”

David huffed out a slow breath. His mouth twisted. He groaned.

“What?” Regina looked up at him.

“Nothing.” David grumbled. “Just that Snow’s going to hate hair all over her sofa.”

Regina blinked then smiled. Of course he wouldn’t be bothered about Henry having magic. The boy was his grandson. He loved him unconditionally.

“Hey, mom!”

Regina turned to look at Henry.

“Can we put his leg on now?”

George now sat at Henry’s side, ears ticked towards Regina and she nodded.

It took longer than she expected. Despite both her and Henry’s calming presence, George was still displeased at the prospect of this wooden thing being strapped to his stump. He grumbled and wriggled out of their hold several times and it took an inordinate amount of coaxing to get him to submit to it.

Eventually, Henry sat on George’s ribs, Regina held his head and David buckled it all into place. George grumbled the whole time but never actually growled at them.

As soon as Henry moved, George surged to his feet and growled at his new leg. He attacked it with his teeth, changing his mind when they just glanced off the hardened wood. He moved onto snuffling and tugging at the buckles and then shook his leg vigorously trying to get it off, battering it off the concrete floor hard enough to strike sparks with the steel claws.

George stilled at that, going back for a less violent investigation.

“Doesn’t he get it?” Henry looked concerned and Regina rubbed his shoulder.

“Give him a moment. It’s not very wolf to have a wooden leg.”

George’s nose travelled the length and breadth of his new limb and he went so far as to bark at it once. His tail waved the air and he looked up at Henry questioningly.

“Come here, boy.” Henry held out his hand and George moved to obey.

He yelped and danced backwards in surprise when he found he suddenly had a fourth leg. He hadn’t put two and two together until he’d gone and used it. He stared wildly at the thing, ears pinning back and then swinging forward alternately.

“That’s it. Come here.” Henry urged again. George looked up at him and whined softly. “It’s alright.”

George heaved a sigh, having trouble believing the boy might know what he was talking about and –cautiously- took his first steps.

The wooden paw and the steel claws clacked against the concrete floor, George’s ears were flattened to his skull and, when he realised it was easier to get around, slowly swivelled forward. His tail began to wave again and he hurried clumsily over to Henry. Pushing his head into Henry’s hands.

“Good boy!” Henry rubbed at his face and ears and George grumbled happily. “Come on.” Henry started down the corridor, looking back and urging George to follow him. “Come on!”

George glanced up at Regina and she nodded.

With a little yip, George clattered after Henry. Stumbling awkwardly but correcting himself with every step and –soon- was trotting after Henry, barely limping at all.

“That was quick.” David noted.

“He did used to be a man. He’s smarter than any normal wolf. That and Geppeto’s craftsmanship is laced with magic. The leg will work with George. I’d wager –in time- that it will respond to him as easily as one of flesh and blood.” Regina folded her arms over her chest. “Henry is having nightmares. He wants to stay with me tonight.”

Regina braced herself and look up at David.

“If that’s alright?”

“Of course.” David nodded. “If it helps him sleep. If you comfort him that much.”

“Thank you.”

David considered a moment.

“You’re entitled. You are his mother…maybe you should enjoy it while you can.”

Regina sighed.

“I’ll be at square one when they’re back.” She hugged herself and was surprised when David’s hand landed on her shoulder and squeezed.

“Not quite. You’re not alone, remember? You have others to speak for you now. Myself and Henry included. We’re not going to forget about you just because Snow and Emma are back.” David gave that goofy grin. “I reserve the right to be a little dazzled, they are my wife and daughter, but I won’t forget you.”

Regina smirked and shook her head.

“We’ll see.”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Still, getting them back is…going to take some doing. Crossing worlds is not an easy task.”

“We’ll figure something out.” David nodded. Reassuring himself as much as her.

“The question of ‘how?’ is still a pretty big one.” Regina needlessly reminded him. She didn’t want him to be crushed by hope.

“Hey, mom! David! Look!”

They both turned to find Henry barrelling along the corridor towards them, running as fast as he could.

George cantered along behind him, still not quite up to moving full speed and then –with a short howl- a portal bloomed from his mouth.

Regina’s jaw literally dropped when George leapt into the whirling energy. Another portal appeared as quickly as the other disappeared and George flew out of it, slithering a little on the landing, but now running neck and neck with Henry.

The two adults stood in stunned silence when George and Henry skidded to a halt in front of them.

“He can teleport!” Henry grinned at them breathlessly. “You think he can go all the way to the Enchanted Forest?”

Regina glanced between three eager faces and realised that question had been directed at her.

“How am I supposed to know?!” She threw her hands at George. “He’s a wolf! Not a hat! He shouldn’t be able to access the magic at all, never mind know how to use it!”

“But you can figure it out, right?” Henry clasped her hand and Regina huffed out a breath. She shrugged a shoulder.

“Probably.”

“Will you? Please?” Henry pleaded. “I know you don’t want them back but…”

“Henry, of course I’ll try.” Regina reached out and smoothed his hair down, smiling when he hugged her gingerly, mindful of his ribs. Running had been a bad idea and now they ached. He looked up suddenly.

“I’m hungry.”

Regina laughed. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

“I kinda missed lunch with the whole hospital thing.”

“Yes, I suppose you did.” Regina’s eyes took on a faraway look for a moment. “Daniel is at the Ugly Duckling. Venison?”

Henry wrinkled his nose and she laughed at him.

“Fetch your jacket and we can go.”

“Okay!” Henry hurried off to find his coat and George trotted dutifully along behind him.

“You’re staring with that stupid grin again, Charming.” Regina spoke without looking at him.

“This is why I won’t abandon you.” David kept that fool grin on his face. “You’re growing as a person.”

Regina’s shoulders hunched and she turned to glare at him.

“You wash your mouth out, Prince Charming.” She warned him. “The last thing I need is a rumour being spread about me being _nice._ ”

David laughed at her.

“I’m serious! My life has become difficult enough as it is with a half dozen people liking me. I live in fear of what will happen if I become friendly with anyone else.”

David just laughed at her.

“You’re adorable.”

He flinched away from her when she slapped him on the shoulder and laughed again.

“You love me really.” He teased.

“Oh, shut up.”

      


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, well, I SUPPOSE you can have another one...

**Chapter 26 – All the Time In the World**

 

**_The Ugly Duckling_ **

 

The bar was mostly empty when he walked in as they had been open only an hour. There were only a couple of diehard patrons to terrify as he strode across the scarred floor of the tavern and Daniel realised in the dim interior that Hyde had made him more than hirsute.

He could see everything.

Not that the room seemed brighter, it was still dark, but that he could see _into_ shadows. In shades of blue, green and purple, but he could see into the black that would be impenetrable to others.

Hyde prowled around in the back of his head, scenting the air and generally growling at anything unfamiliar. Daniel mostly ignored him, content that Hyde would warn him if anyone approached with the intent of harming them, and scanned for a familiar face.

It came at the opposite end of a sword.

Laird Fergus hurdled the bar with a yell and clattered to the ground, swinging his broadsword with both hands.

Surprised, Daniel staggered back a step and lifted his hand, catching the flat of the blade on his palm with a ringing sound, and knocking Fergus back a limping step.

“Out!” Fergus snarled. “Ye’re no’ welcome here.”

“I…” Daniel was forced to hop back when Fergus swung for him again. The sword skimmed over his tee shirt, slashing it open but missing his flesh by a hair’s breadth. “Hey!”

Hyde swam to the surface, rising sinuous and slinking, to glare at Fergus from behind Daniel’s eyes. They flashed a lurid green and Fergus bellowed again, renewing his attack with a volley of furious swings and jabs.

“Damn it, stop!” Daniel danced back, avoiding every swing, and Hyde sank beneath the surface again.

Daniel had the very real sense that Hyde had dismissed Fergus as a worthy opponent (one swordsman? Please.) and was now sulking at the prospect of being bored to death by such mortal antics.

Fergus swung again with that great ponderous sword and Daniel’s patience ran dry. With a snarl and a slap, he hit the blade so hard that it snapped in two. He tore it from Fergus’ grip, fisted his hands in the man’s shirt and hoisted him over his head.

Daniel lowered the bearish lord so that he was almost nose to nose with Daniel. Blue eyes of midnight and summer sky boring into one another. Daniel spoke on a snarl.

“Would you like me to put you down so you may try again, sir?”

“No, I think that’s quite enough.”

Both men turned when Eleanor spoke from behind the bar. She gathered her skirts in one hand, stepped over a cowering customer, and threw up the hatch to join them beyond the bar.

Daniel dropped Fergus onto his feet with a thump and glared at Eleanor too for good measure.

“A test?”

“My children live here.” Eleanor was unapologetic. “Would ye expect any less?”

“You ruined my shirt.” Daniel complained after a moment, finding no fault with her logic. Had their roles been reversed, Daniel wouldn’t have just tested him. He’d have killed anyone that threatened his wife or children. No try about it.  

“An easy mend at the hands of a witch, I’ll wager.” Eleanor spoke carefully and Fergus grated his sword up from the floor.

“I’m not about to...stop it.” Daniel glared at them both. “Hyde won’t come out to play with just one swordsman, no matter how good your lord husband is. Hyde fought armies. For sport. I doubt there’s a single man in this town that Hyde believes worthy of his attentions.”

Eleanor and Fergus shared a speaking glance and –gradually- Eleanor relaxed. She nodded and Fergus changed just as quickly.

“Good tae have ye back, lad.” He nearly knocked Daniel over with the clap to the back. “Ye can help me unload the beer barrels.”

Daniel blinked, flummoxed by such a quick change in attitude.

“That’s it? You believe me?”

“Were ye lyin’?”

“No.”

“Then whit’s the problem?”

“I…never mind.”

“I’ll be at the truck. Join me when the wife’s finished wi’ ye.”

Daniel looked warily at Eleanor.

“Relax.” Eleanor smiled at him. “We’re done with swordplay for the day. I want to talk to you about your lady.”

“Speak with a care.” Daniel warned her.

“Of course.” Eleanor nodded her head towards a booth and preceded him to it. Seating herself with a neat swish of her skirts, she waved a hand for him to join her. “It’s about Merida and Henry.”

Daniel sat warily and frowned.

“What about them?”

Eleanor favoured him with a long look and then sighed.

“Men.” She muttered to herself. “Merida and Henry grow closer. They become fast friends. It is a matter of time before they begin to spend time at one another’s homes. I want to know…how safe is she?”

“Henry lives with David.”

“And visits his mother regularly. He spends much time with her now and I know children. Regina seems dangerous and boys show off for pretty girls. Henry will want to introduce them to one another and Merida has ever been the adventurous type.”

Daniel chuckled and shook his head.

“Any other boy and I’d agree with you.” Daniel gathered his words carefully. “Merida might be the object of his affections, but Henry is fiercely protective of Regina and Merida has already endangered her once. I doubt he’ll be in a hurry to let them spend time with one another.”

“Humour me.” Eleanor wasn’t going to fight him when his mind was made up. “Please.”

“I don’t know what I can say, Eleanor. Regina…I know her like no one else does. Many of her crimes are foreign to me. I cannot fathom that the woman I knew four decades ago could have fallen so far into madness despite the evidence available to me at every turn. I know she would never willingly harm Henry, nor me. I know that she is terrifyingly protective of those she calls family or friend and tends to be indifferent towards anyone else unless they go out of their way to incite her ire.” Daniel shrugged. “She is not tame.”

Eleanor frowned, tapping the table with her fingernails, a pensive look on her face.

“If you ask it of her, Regina will not allow Merida into her house. Henry will respect her wishes and keep them apart.”

“Why would she?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Daniel shrugged. Aware of Hyde rising far enough to sneer. “Your daughter has nothing to offer her. No reason to be held close, to be enticed into Regina’s reach. She also has no reason to offer you insult. Believe me, we’re about to become occupied by the fey. One little redhead is unlikely to ensnare her attention too fiercely.”

“And that also.” Eleanor looked down at her fingers, considering her words. “You may count on our allegiance in that conflict.”

Daniel tilted his head, his silent question a frown.

“We are of the Celtic lands, Daniel. We well know what the fey can be capable of and we have no desire to see them run riot in this town where we have carved out a home for ourselves. Call and the clans will answer.”

Daniel mulled that over, realising very quickly that he was getting into waters way over his head.

“I’ll take your offer to Regina on one condition.”

Eleanor considered him a long moment and they were no longer employee and employer. She was a queen and he the envoy to another. This was head of state affairs and Daniel knew he had no right to be meddling in such things but he wasn’t about to lose a possible ally because of Regina’s pride. If he could accept on her behalf, then he was damn well going to do it.

“Tell me.”

“Your husband teaches me swordplay.”

Eleanor arched a brow, but that was the only indication of her surprise.

“Not Prince Charming?”

“Prince Charming won’t fight,” dirty, “with cunning…that and the Prince would tell Regina.”

“Keeping secrets so soon?”

“It will upset her to pick a fight she won’t win. This land has her convinced that she can protect me and that I won’t wish to do the same for her. I’m not of this land. I’m not going to hide behind her.”

“Just hide things from her?”

“If she asks, I’ll tell her, but I’m not going to be useless to her when the time comes.”

“You’ll be a terror, Daniel. With your strength you could wield a blade ten paces long. Cut through a half dozen men at a time.” Eleanor spoke suddenly grave. “A sword is not a gift, nor is the knowledge of how to use it. This will be a burden even your strength will be tested by. Swords do not give life, they only bring death. Be aware of what you ask and…be prepared to forgive yourself for what you will do.”

Daniel did her the honour of considering her words carefully. Even Hyde sat up and took notice, intrigued by both the prospect of such mass destruction and Eleanor’s simultaneous willingness and reluctance to impart the skills required of it.

“Dying for love was easy.” Daniel said after a long moment. “The real trial is living and I will not –for any price- leave Regina to face it alone again. At the moment I am a burden to her. Protecting me in battle could cost her dearly. I am a target to be used against her and forever will be, but I _refuse_ to be an easy one.”

Eleanor sat back in her seat and huffed out a breath, considering him.

“Very well.” She nodded finally. “Milaird husband will begin your instruction tomorrow. You will train two hours with him every day. In return you will swear to protect my children with your life.”

“Done.” Daniel spoke quickly and smirked.

“What’s funny?”

“Shake on it.” Daniel said instead, holding out his hand. Eleanor took his hand and shook firmly.

“Done.” She agreed. “Now the reason for yer smug smirk.”

“Eleanor,” Daniel smiled, “I’d have already lain down my life for your children. You needn’t even ask.”

Eleanor smirked herself then and shook her head, realising she’d given up a valuable bargaining chip and that she had been outsmarted by a stable lad of all people.

“Mum!” The door the pub flew open and Merida tore in, hair flying and backpack bouncing on her back. “Mum, mum, mum!”

“What is it? Where’s the fire?” Eleanor twisted to look at her daughter.

“Hullo, Daniel.” Merida nodded to him and then rounded on her mother again. “It was Henry!”

Eleanor shot a look at Daniel. It said something along the lines of ‘I told you so’.

“What about him?” Daniel asked instead.

“He was fightin’!” Merida threw both hands above her head to indicate someone larger and broader than she. “Four lads yon size. He beat them bloody and kicked the stuffin’ out o’ them!”

“Goodness.” Eleanor frowned, glancing at Daniel again. “Is he alright?”

“He’s okay, I think. He got a shiner and a fat lip, he was haudin’ his ribs when they took him away. To the hospital. Him ‘n’ the leader o’ the lads.”

“When was this?” Daniel stood suddenly. He hadn’t realised until right at that moment that he actually cared about what happened to Henry.

“Just before lunch. Before the storm.”

“The storm?” Eleanor frowned.

“Aye, we could hear the thunder and see the lightnin’ from maths class.”

“I saw it too.” Daniel murmured. “On my way from Granny’s. It was over the hospital but there was no rain. I thought it odd but…”

“Go.” Eleanor waved him away. “Just go.”

Daniel was already sprinting for the door.

It nearly flew off its hinges –again- when he burst out into the parking lot. He had never really cut loose before. He had slowed himself on the night of the full moon so that David could keep him in sight of not apace, but now he had no such worry.

He was _fast._

Daniel hurdled a parked truck and tore out onto the street, ignoring the honking from a truck that he dodged easily. He had no idea how fast he was running, heading for the hospital, dreading what he might find when he got there, but faster than a horse galloping and faster than even some drivers in their cars. He overtook them with minimal effort, his feet pounding on the asphalt and his stride so large he spent more time off the ground than on it.  

He barely registered the shiny black car before he passed it and it took him a second to notice who he had seen behind the wheel. He heard the screech of tyres on the road and slammed on the brakes himself. His legs locking straight and slithering him to a steaming halt.

He twisted, all the air rushing from him when he saw the Mercedes door flung open and Regina hurling herself out onto the road. He seethed out a relieved breath and then his chest tightened when he caught scent of her blood and saw the spotting of it at her collar.

He caught her in his arms when she ran to him.

“What’s wrong? Who’s after you?” Regina gripped his arms, her eyes wild. “What happened to your shirt?”

“ ** _Who made you bleed?”_** Daniel coughed when Hyde’s voice snarled from within his chest and Regina went still.

“Daniel.” She cupped his face in both hands, looking right into his eyes. “Daniel, look at me. I’m fine. It was just a scratch and it’s already healed. I’m fine. I promise.”

Daniel forced himself to control his breathing. He’d done this since he was a boy, since the first time he’d nearly killed a man in one of those stupid tavern brawls. He’d breathe, hold himself in place and just breathe, until the red receded and he didn’t need to break anyone anymore.

Daniel pushed Hyde to back down. He wasn’t needed. It was a fierce fight and –for an awful moment- Daniel thought he was going to lose, but then he wrestled Hyde back and blinked and his eyes were blue again.

Regina released a slow breath and smiled.

“Tell me who’s after you.” Regina let him bend to her and rest his forehead against hers.

“No one, I had to win my job back at the bar. I was running to you.”

“To me?” Her smile was something soft, relieved and gentle.

“Always.” He smiled back. “That, and I thought you’d destroyed somebody at the hospital.”

Something flickered in her eyes.

“No, actually the opposite.”

“Mom?”

Daniel lifted his head and stilled when he saw the damage that had been inflicted on Henry.

“Who did that to him?” His voice was a low growl but it was all his own.

“Well, I’m certainly not telling you now.”

“We’re kind of holding up traffic.” Henry called again, trying not to move his mouth to wide because of his split lip.

“I am aware.” Regina waved at the honking truck behind them and the horn quailed away to a squawk before dying. “Come on, we’re going to Granny’s.”

Regina took Daniel’s hand and towed him towards the car still idling on the road. Daniel smiled, relieved at seeing both Regina and her boy were fine, and stilled only when he moved to duck into the car and found shining blue eyes watching him from behind the driver’s seat.

“Regina.”

“Yes, dear?” Regina looked over the top of the car at him.

“There’s a wolf in the back seat.”

“That’s George.”

“I know who it is, I just thought he was enamoured with the idea of eating you.”

“Not anymore.” Regina ducked into the car and closed the driver’s side door.

Daniel let out a low growl and leaned into the car again, glaring at George.

“Try anything and I’ll bite you back.”

George gave a small whine and tilted his head.

“Don’t play dumb either, I know you understand me.” Daniel grumbled and dropped into the passenger seat.

“If it will make you feel better, you can sit in the back and him in the front so he’s not behind you.” Regina was grinning at him.

“Stop enjoying this.” He ordered her.

“Hmm, no.” Regina threw the car into gear and started along the road. Peeling into an extremely illegal U-turn and waving jauntily at the man that flipped her off before he realised who she was.

All four tyres fell off his truck.

“Mom!” Henry admonished her.

“What?” All innocence.

“That guy’s truck!”

“Whoops.” Regina hunched her shoulders, eyes wide as if it had just been brought to her attention. “I suppose karma is enthusiastic in this town.” Her voice darkened a little. “Which would explain my day.”

Regina glanced at Daniel when he reached out and touched her leg. She shook her head, not now, not while there were young ears to overhear.

Daniel nodded, leaving it at that for now, and turned in his seat to look back at Henry –favouring George with a glare as he did so.

George grumbled and lay down across two seats, resting his chin on Henry’s knee. The boy petted his ears and George seemed to smirk at Daniel.

“So, Henry,” Daniel decided to ignore the wolf since it was apparently unacceptable for him to throw the mutt out of a moving vehicle, “your first fight?”

Henry got mulish in an instant.

“I’m not apologising.”

“Why did you fight them?” Daniel asked instead.

“They…I got mad because they were talking about mom. They weren’t saying nice things.” Henry spoke carefully. Wisely not wanting to mention Hyde just after the sight of Regina’s blood had brought him so close to the surface.

“It can’t be the first time that’s happened.” Daniel carried on in a conversational tone. He’d never taken umbrage against anything that had been _said_ about his drunk of a father in the taverns –most of the time he’d agreed with it- he’d acted only to physically protect him.

He was curious to know what had caused such a level-headed boy as Henry to react in such a violent and bloody manner.

“This was different. This was _nasty_.” Henry tugged gently on George’s ears and the wolf tolerated it without protest. “They…other people –when they talk about mom- I dunno, there’s always a kind of…”

“Fear.” Regina indicated to turn and supplied the elusive word for her son. “People spoke of me with fear in their eyes before. Now they don’t.”

“Don’t sound too pleased, love.” Daniel arched a brow at her. “It only means they’re beginning to like you.”

“I don’t want them to _like_ me, I want them to stay away from us. Hell, at this rate, I’d prefer being ignored.”

“No one’s ever going to ignore you, so get used to that idea right now.” Daniel told her firmly and turned back to Henry. “Well?”

“Respect.” Henry decided after a moment. “It was a lack of respect. Granny never liked you, mom, not before, but she always spoke with respect. She definitely wasn’t afraid of you.”

“Small favours.” Regina murmured. “The last thing I need is that woman acting out of fear.”

“Well, she’s family now.” Daniel tried to ease her.

“Considering my track record with family, I might be safer if she hates me.”

Daniel sighed, knowing that was a problem that he couldn’t solve in a car ride. He reached out and squeezed her knee briefly and turned back to Henry.

“You’re hurt.”

“Not badly.” Henry straightened in his seat, summoning his brave face.

“And you struck each of them down.”

“Yeah.”

 “In defence of your mother.”

“Yes.”

“You are in trouble with your teachers. Your peers will forever look at you differently for you have shed the blood of their friends. Some of them will fear you, others admire and some shall even hate you for it. You will become a target for those wishing to prove themselves. Your actions have changed your life, Henry, you are no longer a child.”

“Yes he is.” Regina frowned but her voice wasn’t as firm as she obviously wanted it to be.

“You know that’s not true.” Daniel told her gently. “You might have pretended for three decades but you are not of this world. Neither of us are. By the time I was Henry’s age, I already had to work to eat.”

“Well, that’s what you call progress.”

“That’s what you call coddling.” Daniel turned back to Henry and let her wrestle with that. She would find it hard to let go –she had every reason to cling to any scrap of family she could hoard together- but it would happen regardless.

He would have to break it to her over time that –just because he was growing up- didn’t mean Henry was leaving her.

 “Knowing all this, and think carefully of the strife and pain your actions have caused you, if this lad was to insult your mother again, what would you do?”

Henry’s jaw set and he watched his fingers delve into George’s fur for a moment. He twisted his mouth, sucking on the salt taste of the split of his lip. He looked up at Daniel, eyes steely.

“I’d still stomp harder.”

“On his head?” Daniel frowned, that was more violent than he had thought. He’d have to teach the boy restraint.

“No! I didn’t want to kill him!” Henry looked offended. “I stomped on his teeny tiny balls!”

“Henry!” Regina tried to admonish him but it failed when she coughed a laugh at the same time.

Daniel didn’t bother to hide it. He threw back his head and laughed.

Henry blinked at the reaction, glancing at his mother, who was studiously looking out the windshield, her shoulders shaking suspiciously. Daniel still guffawed in the front seat.

“Stop that.” Regina mustered her voice under quivering control, slapping him on the arm. “We’re supposed to be a good influence.”  

 “That’s what David is for.” Daniel still laughed.

“Does this mean I’m not getting punished?”

“I’ll think of something for you to do that will be construed as punishment. Cleaning out the animal shelter or something.” Regina searched for a parking spot in front of Granny’s.

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Bear in mind you’ll be doing it with cracked ribs, boy.” Daniel murmured. “That’s no fun at all.”

Regina pulled into a free space and killed the engine, thoughtful for a moment. She turned to look at Daniel.

“Will you teach him?”

Daniel tilted his head.

“Teach him to fight.”

“You want me to learn?” Henry sat forward, all ears.

“I’m with the short one.” Daniel nodded back towards Henry. “This is new.”

“Henry is an able swordsman, considering how long he’s been learning, but that’s not how boys are going to fight in the schoolyard. They brawl and tackle and scrap around on the floor. Something you have a vast experience with. I want you to teach him how to fall correctly, how to get up quickly and what to do with an opponent when he can’t.” Regina lanced Henry with a glare. “This is NOT permission to go around using these skills to impress anyone or simply because you feel like it.”

“Who’d I impress?” Henry wrinkled his nose in confusion.

Regina arched a brow at that but turned her attention back to Daniel.

“If you wish it.” Daniel shrugged. “Will David not object?”

“I can’t imagine David objecting to Henry furthering his education.” Regina shrugged nonchalantly.

“I have noticed that your stupidity is wilful.” Daniel smirked and she grinned in return.

“Let’s go eat.” Henry unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned over to let George out of the car first onto the sidewalk. He scrambled out after the wolf.

“Thus the herald speaks and departs.” Daniel muttered and threw open his own door to follow the boy.

He joined Regina on the sidewalk, nudging her shoulder with his and falling into step with her heading for the diner.

Neither of them was fully prepared for Ruby to explode out of the doorway and shift into wolf form in one move. She was quite suddenly nose to nose with George –who had been negotiating the steps carefully. The smaller wolf went stock still. His tail flew up and his hackles bristled but his ears pinned back and he whined uncertainly.

Regina did as she always did and took control of the situation. She skirted Henry and George, trotted up the steps and wrapped her hand –bravely or stupidly- around Ruby’s muzzle. She turned the great brown wolf’s face up to hers and bent so that they were eye to eye.

“No.” She said firmly. “He’s one of us.”

Then she patted Ruby on the head, threw open the door to the diner and sailed inside as nonchalantly as she had done for the last twenty odd years.

“Hey!” Ruby switched back to human form and scrambled in the door after her.

Daniel smirked and followed Henry and George into the diner at a more sedate and cautious pace.

“He’s not allowed in here!” Daniel arrived in time to hear the bickering get into full swing.

“A wolf isn’t allowed in Granny’s?” Regina smirked. “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”

“You know what I mean.” Ruby snapped, circling Regina to cut off her escape to a booth. Neither of them seemed bothered that this was a very public place and Regina in particular seemed to think it was all in good fun.

“He’s not safe!”

“He’s had all his shots.” Regina employed that wilful stupidity again and succeeded in making her way to her favourite booth. The one at the back near the fire escape.

“He tried to kill you!”

“Ruby, _everybody_ has tried to kill me at one point or another. Hell, _Happy_ has tried to kill me,” Regina waved at the dwarf in question, “and I’m almost certain he’s some kind of spaniel.”

“Reeeeggiiieeeeee!” Ruby whined. “Granny will flip her curlered lid.”

“Don’t call me that.” Regina spoke darkly and then picked up a menu, pointedly ignoring the younger woman, indicating the discussion was over.

Looked like Ruby had some of that wilful stupidity too. They were going to have an epidemic if they weren’t careful.

“I’ll call you what I like.” She flopped into the booth beside Regina, being sure to elbow her in the ribs. “Face it, you don’t know enough about that fuzzy little pretender to know that he’s not going to chew someone’s face off.”

“That is NO way to talk about Charming.” Regina told her archly.

“Wouldn’t you rather, if you are concerned about George being a danger, that he be here? Where both you and Regina can keep an eye on him?” Daniel sidled into the other side of the booth, leaving room for Henry. They didn’t chance letting George up onto the seat.

Ruby raised a finger and opened her mouth, she was silent a long moment and then clipped her teeth shut.

“Daniel, don’t go using logic on her, it’s not fair.” Regina flicked aside the menu to admonish him, barely smirking, and then flipped it up to hide her face again just as quickly.

Ruby flopped back against the booth and scowled.

“Don’t sulk, it’s unattractive.” Regina told her.

“And what’s the point in looking attractive when I’d snap any man here in half?” Ruby folded her arms over her chest with a thud.

Regina ticked her menu aside again to check Henry and found him absorbed in reading the menu to George.

“Move onto the women?”

Ruby growled and Regina smirked.

“Oh sure, be smug now that you’re getting it on the regular.”

“This is a family establishment, Ruby, behave yourself.”

“I’ve BEEN behaving. For three days! I’m going crazy in here!” Ruby scrubbed at her arms as if to try and settle fur that wasn’t there and the menu drooped in Regina’s hands.

She sighed.

“Go.”

“What?”

“GO.” Regina gave her a little shunt towards the edge of the booth. “I can look after the diner.”

“No you can’t.” Ruby stammered, though half-heartedly. “You don’t know how to do the tills or…”

“I balanced this town’s books for twenty eight years, I have broken into this place more than once in the middle of the night for my triple shot and I know the menu inside and out since I’m the only one that remembers being a patron here for so long.” Regina hustled Ruby out of the booth with shooing hands and –when that didn’t work- lifting her foot and punting her out of the seat forcibly.

“Hey!”

“You keep saying that, I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

“But…”

“You’ve been here for three days. Three days in one place is a LONG time for a wolf. Go. Take a run, see Granny, tattle on me to her, go and find Sher Kahn in the hunt and fishing shop, do whatever or whoever you like.” Regina gave Ruby a helpful shove towards the door.

“A cat?!”

“A tiger…you’ll understand when you see him.” Regina smirked.

“What about your dinner?”

Regina looked over at Henry and Daniel, who had watched all of this with varying degrees of amusement and disappointment. She realised quite suddenly that she was doing it _again_. Spending time with everyone but them.

Daniel saw her expression and he smiled. It mattered at least that she knew she was doing it and that they didn’t like it. Not doing it would perhaps come with time…or instruction, depending on which worked better.

“I can do drinks. I’ve done a couple of shifts at the tavern.” He offered.

“I can take orders!” Henry grinned, catching on.

Regina’s smile was incredible. She rounded on Ruby, looking smug once more.

“There, you see? I have an army of helpers at my disposal.”

“But…the dinner rush…” Ruby wavered, wanting to go as much as wanting to stay.

“All the more reason to flee while you still can.”

“But…”

“You do realise I can just teleport you into the woods, right?” Regina planted a hand on her hip and tilted her head.

“Oh, no, it gives me the heebies.” Ruby hopped back a step as if that might help.

“Then scat!” Regina raised her hands, magic sparking from her fingertips. “I’ve never teleported someone without me being with them before, I do hope I send all of you to the same place.”

Then Ruby was gone, the swinging door of the diner and the ring of the little bell overhead the only indication she’d been there at all.

“Well, at least _somebody_ still runs from me.” Regina murmured, mostly to herself and then mustered herself to look at her men, muscling down her guilt as a matter of habit. She’d gotten good at ignoring it over the years.

“I’m sorry. I know you wanted me to have dinner with you.” She shrugged. “I’m not great at…this.”

Henry looked up at Daniel and then back to Regina. He smiled.

“But we’re the ones that get to go home with you and teach you.”

Daniel ruffled Henry’s hair hard enough to wobble his whole head. Henry laughed.

“From the mouths of babes.” Daniel agreed and followed Henry out of the booth. He leaned in and kissed Regina’s cheek, resting his forehead against hers briefly. “We’ll get there.”

Regina smirked, kissed him quickly and then spun away with a clap of her hands.

“Right, I’ll do teas, coffees and tills, Henry can work the floor and you can do any beers or sodas. Sound like a plan?”

“Outstanding.” Daniel took Henry’s hoody from him and hung it up on the coat rack by the door before following Regina behind the bar.

“Yes, boss!” Henry eagerly accepted the apron that Regina handed him. He stuffed the notepad she gave him in his shirt pocket and tucked the pencil behind his ear.

Regina smoothed down his hair and nodded in approval.

Daniel ambled along to familiarise himself with the bar, checking where the glasses were, what liquor he had and other barman type things that he had seen Eugene do before a night in the _Duckling_.

“I’ll just check in with the cook.” Regina tied her own apron on and nodded to Henry. “You stay here and greet anyone that comes in. Not behind the bar, George.” She hustled the wolf out onto the main floor on her way to the kitchen. 

“Sure.” Henry snuck a biscuit he’d pilfered from the animal shelter to George. The wolf crunched it happily and Henry reminded himself again to buy another box to make up for the ones he’d stolen.

Henry jumped with a start when a shriek and a loud crash issued from the kitchen.

He spun around, Daniel already at his side, his hand on the boy’s shoulder when the saloon style doors leading to the kitchen burst apart and a large rounded man barrelled out of them.

The man, presumably the cook in his chef’s whites, saw Daniel and then shrieked again. He spun, tripped over George, righted himself in a hurry. Screamed again when he saw a wolf looking up at him and then ran –still yelling, arms flailing over his head- from the diner. The door jingling merrily on his departure.

There was a long moment of stunned silence. The few patrons in the diner, that had been watching all of this with the kind of stunned bemusement usually reserved for mime, looked at the jingling door swinging closed and then –slowly- looked back to the doorway to the kitchen.

Delicate fingers curled one by one over the top of the doors and gently pushed them open with a slow creak. Regina seemed to melt out from between them, her lips pursed, looking at the door as if expecting it to usher the chef back into the diner once more. After a long moment of that, she turned to look at Daniel.

“Change of plan,” she sounded perfectly calm, “I shall be cooking tonight.”

“We can manage the cash and till.” Daniel nodded.

“Thank you, dear.” Regina smiled sweetly at him and then receded into the kitchen in a manner that Daniel suspected was intentionally creepy.

There wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that she now viewed the kitchen as _hers_ and that interloper chef –that had probably fed her as a patron for decades- had been sent on his way accordingly.

He’d been right earlier, when he’d spoken of her to Eleanor.

Regina _wasn’t_ tame.

“So!” Henry broke the spell first, flipping an empty soda bottle crate with one foot and hopping up onto it so he could see over the bar properly. He whipped out his notepad and plucked his pencil from behind his ear, licking the point like he’d seen done in the movies. The taste reminded him not to do it again.

Still, he surveyed the bar with the obdurate optimism that had helped him break the most powerful curse ever cast.

“Who’s hungry?”

 

**_After the Dinner Rush…_ **

 

“Tired, short stack?” Daniel smirked at Henry, whose shoulders drooped and feet dragged, and slung his glass polishing towel over his shoulder.

“Dog tired.” Henry nodded, but he smiled.

“Take a seat, you deserve a break.” Daniel nodded to an empty bar stool and Henry clambered up onto it with a restrained wince.

He had done well. Daniel approved. Even with cracked ribs and no doubt aching all over, Henry had thrown himself into his task. Taking orders, clearing tables, chatting with customers, carrying trays, delivering drinks and handling some of the smaller cash transactions. He had helped immensely.

Of course, now he was exhausted, but he looked pleased with himself.

The diner had been _busy_. Word of the night’s special staff had evidently spread like wildfire and every seat had been filled.

Daniel would have thought that people might be wary of eating anything Regina cooked but –apparently- neither Henry nor David had ever been quiet about how good Regina’s lasagne, chili cheeseburgers, sweet potato fries, chicken and tarragon risotto, broth and dumplings, sweetcorn fritters, ‘doorstop’ sandwiches, bacon baskets or All Year Christmas Panini’s were.

If Regina hadn’t gained friends that night, she had certainly gained followers. Daniel wouldn’t be surprised if Granny saw tonight’s takings and demand- -er- asked that Regina do it on the regular.

It wasn’t like she wouldn’t have to get a new chef anyway.

In fact, Granny had called. Once.

She had spoken with Regina for a grand total of ten seconds before Regina had quietly hung up the phone without saying a word and then hauled the wire out of the wall when it had begun to ring again. She had disappeared into the kitchen –muttering something about being unappreciated in her time- and both Daniel and Henry had avoided disturbing her any more than was absolutely necessary.

Daniel had been trying to gauge the temperature of her mood from the safety of the other end of the bar for some time when she made an appearance without prompting.

“Dinner for my men!” Regina spun out of the kitchen, two plates heaped with food held over her head and then she sashayed along behind the bar to slide both dinners in front of Daniel and Henry.

“Chicken and crisps!” Both Daniel and Henry spoke at the same time with broad grins and then looked up at one another.

Regina was subjected to a questioning look from both of them.

“What?” She shrugged a shoulder. “It’s a simple meal, but I know you both like it.”

“Like it?!” Henry threw up his hands. “It’s my favourite meal of all time! Ever!”

“I agree with the titch.” Daniel leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Though perhaps with less fervour. Thank you.”

“Hey,” Henry levelled a potato chip at Daniel with a warning in his tone, “no one else gets it.”

Daniel smirked and tilted his head and Henry went on to explain as if to some unfortunate child that had missed out on something vital growing up.

“It’s a meal of textures,” he lifted the chicken, “you got the juicy meat with the smoky roast flavour, you got the crunchy potato chips with the dry salt,” he carefully placed the chicken onto a potato chip, “you got the sorta sweet onion chutney thing,” he scooped the relish on top of the chicken, “and finally the creaminess of the cheese.”

He smeared a lump of cream cheese over the relish then shoved the entire handful into his mouth and crunched and munched happily. When Daniel just continued to watch him with a small smirk, he was treated to another finger levelled at him.

“Do not _mock_ (gulp) the Chicken and Crisps.” Henry set about making another tower of textures with a concentration that was usually reserved for neurosurgery. “Of course, it should really only be eaten on rainy days while you listen to the storm hammer on the window as a backdrop to Roald Dahl’s _Fantastic Mister Fox_ or _Grizzly Tales_ but needs must.”

Daniel wound his arm around Regina’s waist and smirked down at her.

“To think, we got it wrong for all these years.”

“If only he’d been this enthusiastic about his homework.” Regina drawled in agreement.  

“Whafooya mean?” Henry spoke around his mouthful of heavenly food.

“Chew, then swallow, dear.” Regina reminded him, sweeping a stray tendril of hair out of her face.

Her hair was just long enough to tie back and she had done so, her shirt had been removed in the heat of the kitchen in favour of a black tank top to go with her leggings and boots. Her cheeks were flushed from the steam from the pots and grill, she had sauce splashed on her apron, flour handprints on the seat of her pants from dusting her hands off there and a streak of something that Henry suspected was cranberry sauce on her chin.

Henry could not remember a time when she had seemed so peaceful.

He grinned and held out his next leaning tower of chicken and crisps to her.

She quirked a smile and leaned in, chomping it from his fingers with a little growl. As she had always done when they listened to _Crocky-Wok the Crocodile._

Henry giggled and Daniel smiled to watch it.

“Chicken and crisps was the first meal we shared together.” Daniel answered Henry’s question belatedly.

Regina looked up at him, chewing thoughtfully, remembering and she smiled.

“Well?” Henry spoke suddenly. “Tell.”

Regina looked at him, finishing her bite of food, and wondered where to start. She heaved a sigh and looked up at the ceiling. She supposed the beginning was best.

“Daniel hated me.”

“I did not!”

“He _really_ hated me.” Regina ignored Daniel and dropped forward onto her elbows on the bar. “A lot.”

“This is a tissue of lies.” Daniel waved his hand to undercut it. “I have never hated your mother.”

“I thought you loved each other.” Henry frowned.

“Of course we do.” Daniel looked offended at the doubt.

“It doesn’t happen right away.” Regina seemed less ruffled. She’d had worse accusations slung her way after all. “You’ll understand when you discover girls.”

Henry looked perplexed at that.

“So…Daniel hated me…”

“I did NOT hate you!”

“Aaaannd,” Regina spoke over him, “he plotted my untimely demise.”

“It was your own fault!”

“Don’t be embarrassed, dear, you’re not the first to have tried and failed.” Regina spoke to Daniel and patted his arm but never once looked away from Henry, her eyes dancing with laughter. “It took him _months_ of planning, he’s not very good at the whole evil thing after all, and –when the opportunity arose…”

“It was your idea.” Daniel reminded her, folding his arms over his chest.

“Piffle.” Regina glanced at him.

“Piffle?”

“Yes, piffle. Now hush while I tell my boy how you tried to kill me.”

“I did no…!” Daniel threw up his hands and then turned to Henry. “Who are you going to believe?”

“You mean between the Evil Queen and the monster Mister Hyde?” Henry asked blandly, crunching a potato chip.

Regina chuckled and Daniel took control of the conversation through the simple means of picking her up and moving her behind him.

“You see, Henry, it went like this; your mother was a spoiled…”

“Hey!”

“…wealthy, brat, who got everything she wanted.”

“That is a gross lie!”

“Up to and including a horse that was caught from the wild because he was big and strong and beautiful.” Daniel shoved Regina behind him again when she tried to get back to the bar. “Of course, he was completely stark raving mad.”

“He was not. He was lovely.” Regina looked around Daniel before being tucked away again.

“He ate metal rivets once. He was as nutty as squirrel shit.”

“Language.” Regina skelped the back of Daniel’s head.

“So,” Daniel reached behind himself with both arms and did something to Regina that forced a squeak from her, “when confronted with this big, black, beautiful, _bonkers_ , horse…”

“A horse that was caught and led to me by…?”

“Some poor unfortunate lad of circumstance, I forget his name.” Daniel shrugged it away on a smirk. “Anyway, when confronted with the magnificent beast, what did this spoiled little rich girl do?”

“Jumped on his back.” Henry dunked his chicken in some relish and then shoved it in his mouth. He usually had much better manners, but Chicken and Crisps should be enjoyed with the whole face if at all possible.

“Of course she did.” Daniel yelped when purple magic engulfed him and slid him along the floor as easily as he’d scoot a glass along the bar.

“I was _told_ ,” Regina propped herself on the bar again and erected a field around Daniel that silenced him, “by certain criminals who shall remain nameless, that he was tame.”

Daniel shook his head wildly, giving up on trying to be heard even though he could obviously hear them just fine.

Henry began to giggle but sobered when his mother cleared her throat and arched a brow at him.

“Pay attention, you will be quizzed later.” Regina began to eat from Daniel’s plate. “Now, where was I?”

“Daniel tricked you into jumping onto the horse.”

“That’s right!” Regina tore apart a piece of chicken and looked at him with wide and overly innocent eyes. “Now, imagine everyone’s surprise when said beast is NOT a horse…but a kelpie.”

“What’s a kelpie?”

Daniel said something and gesticulated behind the barrier and Regina threw up a hand, hurriedly blurring it so Henry couldn’t see.

“A kelpie is a water demon that takes the form of a beautiful black or white horse and entices young women to jump onto his back.”

“Why?”

“To…”

There was another gesture from within the bubble and it blurred further. Henry chuckled again.

“To eat them. It’s a nasty business.” Regina said smoothly.

“Why didn’t you just jump off its back?”

There was a sudden popping sound and Regina jumped when the barrier just melted away from Daniel, who stood stripped to the waist, his scar glowing on his chest.

He smirked.

“Put your shirt on. People will think I’m after you for your money.” Regina straightened from the bar.

“Unlikely.” Daniel winked at Belle who flushed prettily and ducked her head behind her menu when Regina’s glare landed heavily on her.

“And everybody knows you can’t jump off a kelpie’s back because, once you’re on, you’re stuck there.” Daniel tugged his tee shirt back on. “Unless, someone extremely dashing and handsome chases after said beastie and puts a bridle on him.”

“How did you manage it then?” Regina smirked at him and he grinned back.

“I was in fear for your life, of course.”

Regina looked over at Henry.

“In fear for his job. The career prospects of a boy who kills his employer’s firstborn are often not great.”

“Such LIES!” Daniel shook his head, tutting. “It’s tragic. No, I went after your mother, racing on a much _nicer_ horse that I had procured for her instead of the insane one, and slipped a bridle over the beast’s head _just_ before he dived into the lake with her still stuck on his back.”

“Then what happened?!”

“I landed in the lake anyway.” Regina’s voice was flat, she looked archly at Daniel. “And the kelpie got away.”

“Of course he got away, I had to jump into the lake and save you. I would have thought a girl of your vaunted education would know how to swim.”

“Of course I couldn’t swim! I was wearing a corset, heels and about ten yards of fabric!”

“For riding a horse?” Henry frowned.

“Exactly!” Daniel smirked.

“Oh, don’t look so pleased with yourself.” Regina rolled her eyes. “So he dragged me out of that lake, looking like two drowned rats the pair of us, and what did I find?”

“A fish in your corset!”

Regina’s character broke for a moment as she laughed and then she shook it off to complete the performance.

“I found a picnic.” She waved at the food spread in front of them. “With chicken and crisps and cider.” She shrugged. “He had planned the whole thing.”

“The kelpie and everything?!” Henry gaped.

“It cost me too. I had to feed him cow livers for a week while he was in the stables.” Daniel looped his arms around Regina’s waist from behind and rested his chin on top of her head. “He owed me for freeing him from some idiot that was using him to plough a field.”

Daniel chose not to mention that the man had shortly thereafter disappeared, only one bloodied shoe by a lake leaving any clue as to where he had gone, and that Daniel cared not a jot for the man’s death. He had seen the flogging scars from the iron wire the farmer had used on the kelpie and –whilst a kelpie is not really a horse or a dumb animal- Daniel had no stomach for such cruelty.

Not even Regina knew that part of it.    

 “That seems…excessive.” Henry decided after a moment and Daniel chuckled.

“Your mother was spoiled, I had to do something grand to get her attention.”

“Now _that_ is a lie.” Regina’s voice was soft and she looked down at Daniel’s arms wrapped around her, resting her own over them to hold him there. “You had me quite enthralled just by being.”

Henry smiled. It was mushy and ridiculous and so…so…normal. He smiled even more. He was so glad for his mom.

“Girl!”

All three of them jumped when the door to the diner was flung open and Granny strode in, one hand filled with a cane that she leaned heavily on and the other occupied with pinching Ruby’s ear between her fingers.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow…” Ruby twisted painfully, trying to keep her favourite ear attached and hurried to keep up with Granny as she hobbled with a will towards Regina.

“Missus Lucas, _please_.” Rachel hurried after both of them. “You need to get back in bed.”

“Not whilst my business is being flung away like a sock with a hole in the toe.” Granny snapped, dragging Ruby along to stand level with Henry.

“Hi, Reggie.” Ruby waved. “So, I went to see Granny.”

“Quiet, you.” Granny warned her. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Regina extricated herself from Daniel’s arms, wanting to be braced for what was to come and summoned her wolf. It bounded readily to the surface, ears pointed at Granny, sniffing industriously.

Granny opened her mouth and Regina cut her off at the pass.

“Oh, stop it!” She planted her hands on her hips and stalled Granny before her tirade could gather any meaningful steam. “You’re bored, I get it. Let go of Ruby’s ear!”

Granny did out of stunned surprise. People did not… _talk_ to her that way.

“So you’ve been stuck in bed for three days because you nearly exploded your _heart_ turning into a giant werewolf well, guess what! We’re keeping you exactly where you are until we’re satisfied you’re not going to shuffle off this mortal coil pink fluffy slippers first!” Regina levelled a dangerous finger at the old woman when she opened her mouth again, cutting her off. “By hook or by crook you will be _looked after_ by this family that you have dragged about yourself. You’ve got Ruby, who’s stuck with you because of a paltry thing like a blood relation, you’ve got me because you _wanted_ me which means you’ve got Daniel, you’ve got Henry and you’ve got David. You’ve even got Rachel, who puts up with more nonsense from the whole pack of us than any of us deserve.” Regina thrust a hand at the doctor who wisely just stood there and chose not to get herself involved.

“So, we’re all doing this because we are your family and we are not sweeping you to the sidelines or forgetting about you and –if you wanted to try my cooking that badly- all you had to do was ask.”

Regina canted forward, planting both hands on the bar and arched a brow at the old wolf.

“I…you…” Granny stammered, the wind completely gone from her sails.

“Chicken and Crisps?” Henry offered a little tower of it to her, smiling brightly and Granny found something new to blow up about. She pointed at Henry and rounded on Regina again.

“It’s taken care of.” Regina’s voice was more solid than oak. Then it softened. “It’s not that we can’t function without you it’s just that we don’t want to.”

Granny let out a low sigh.

“Now,” Regina straightened, “that you’ve gotten what you wanted and we’re _all_ here to fawn over you, what would you like for dinner?”

Granny looked for a long moment like she might blow up anyway but then she slowly softened and smiled. Just a little, less even than Regina usually did, but it was a smile.

“Chicken and crisps is fine. If it’s all ye can muster.”

Regina rolled her eyes –though she bore a hint of a smile as well- and turned to head to the kitchen.

Daniel watched her go and then slowly looked over at Granny. He winked at her and the old woman grinned.

“What?” Henry looked back and forth between them. “What?”

“I told you she felt that way.” Daniel leaned down onto his elbows and rested his chin on his hands. “Now she knows it too.”

“How long do you think her panic attack in the kitchen will last?” Granny nodded towards the still swinging saloon style doors.

“Probably the exact amount of time it takes to make a plate full of Chicken and Crisps for everyone here.” Daniel mused and slanted a look at Henry’s accusing glare.

“You tricked her.”

“Of course I did.” Daniel smirked and tilted his head. “Your mum’s always been that way. She’s never believed she could have nice things. Never. You have to fool her into thinking you don’t realise she can have them either and then –because she’s so picky about that kind of thing- she has to correct you. It’s how she works.” Daniel shrugged a shoulder.

Henry frowned, thinking about that from every angle.

“I’m not sure I like that.”

“I’m definitely sure I don’t like it.” Daniel looked the boy in the eye. “It’s something terrible that’s been done to her to make her that way, but it doesn’t mean she’s broken. It just means we have to work harder so that we can function with her. Loving your mother is hard. She’s crazed and scared and messy and wonderful and so loving that it’s frightening sometimes but she is worth it. Through and through.”

Henry watched Daniel for a long moment.

“I know that.” He spoke very quietly.

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Henry coughed and straightened in his seat when Daniel just looked at him. His voice was strong. “Yes.”

“Good.” Daniel reached out and mussed his hair again so Regina would have to straighten it. “I may like you yet, small fry.”

Then he walked away, leaving Henry to release a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.

Daniel might like him.

It was a start.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for any mistakes. I've been doing nothing BUT editing all day and it's seriously beginning to get on my tits. 
> 
> So I thought I'd update for y'all and maybe brighten someone else's day since today and yesterday are just going to have to be written off as a loss. 
> 
> FML. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**Chapter 27 – Against the Rules**

“Come on, before you fall asleep on your feet.” Daniel stooped and held his arms behind his back.

Henry hesitated a long moment and then smiled. Gripping Daniel’s shoulders, he hopped up and Daniel caught him easily, hoisting the boy’s weight like it was nothing.

“I’m not that tired.” Henry assured him. “I just haven’t had a piggyback in a long time.”

Daniel chuckled but didn’t call the boy on the lie.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Talking to Granny.” Henry pointed and Daniel turned them so they could see Regina standing a step down from Granny on the guest house porch.

“Why do women take so long to say goodbye? They’re going to see one another tomorrow.” Daniel murmured and Henry laced his fingers together around Daniel’s neck, resting his chin on top of the man’s head.

“I dunno. I thought that was just a thing in this world.”

“No, I think that one’s universal.” Daniel tried not to let his impatience show in his voice. He could feel Henry going slack against his back. The boy was exhausted but frantically trying to stay awake.

“Daniel?”

“Yes?”

“What are you afraid of?”

Daniel frowned, caught off guard but the question. He almost twisted to look at the boy but he had tensed in Daniel’s hold. Waiting on the answer to the question. Daniel inhaled a deep breath and had the impression that this was very important to Henry.

“The same things you are, I suppose.” Daniel shrugged. “Loss, mostly. I don’t want to lose the people I care about.”

“Not fire?” Henry hurriedly tacked on. “Or the dark or anything like that?”

“You don’t really use fire in this world. You have electricity.” Daniel tilted his head. “I suppose it would be more frightening to someone who didn’t use it every day. Back home, fire was the only source of light –from the sun itself to the lanterns in our houses. It was the only source of warmth for peasants like me. We used it to heat and shape iron for horseshoes or weapons or tools, to light the way in the dark and drive it away, to keep us warm at night…fire is a good thing.”

“But it burns.” Henry’s voice was small.

“Yes, it does, but only if you don’t know how to control it and you don’t respect it. When I was…” Daniel trailed off and wondered how much to tell the boy. He huffed out a breath and decided that –if he could draw some comfort from it- it did Daniel no harm to share some of his past. “When I was younger, before I went to work for Regina’s father, I was on my own for quite a while. I wasn’t much older than you are now when I left home to make my way in the world.”

“Why?” Henry tried to keep the yawn from his voice.

“Not all parents are good to their children.” Daniel tried to think on how to word it more politely and couldn’t. “My father was a waste of space and I…I did bad things for him. I hurt people to protect him. Hurt them badly. I’m a fighter, Henry, and that can be a good thing but…not the way I did it. I didn’t like what I was becoming, so I left. I was a year younger than you are now.”

“You were only nine!”

“Nine is old enough to fend for yourself back home.” Daniel tilted his head. “Just.”

“Wait, you beat up grown-ups when you were just nine?” Henry’s brain caught up with him.

“They were drunk, I was mean, I used any weapon that came to hand and I was tall and strong for my age.” Daniel tilted his head. “That and I was under the impression that I was fighting for my life every single time.”

“You must be really good.”

“Or really bad, depending on your point of view.” Daniel huffed a sigh. “When you are to take on the biggest and meanest opponent in any room…you have to do so without mercy. I don’t think there was a single fight where I didn’t draw blood if not shatter bones. I feel pride for none of it.”

Henry absorbed that for a long moment.

“But…it was for your dad. Doesn’t that make it…better?”

“No. No it doesn’t.” Daniel thought how to explain to someone who’d never been confronted with bad parenting. “I hurt people, Henry. I crippled some of them. When I found out that my father had been betting on me, making money off how ferocious I had become…I left.”

“Wasn’t it scary? Alone, I mean.”

“Terrifying. The only company I had was the pony I had stolen and the lantern in my hand.” Daniel heaved in a breath and watched Regina move from Granny to Rachel. Well, he supposed that was progress, at least she was down off the guesthouse steps now. A whole five paces closer to them. “It was bad, the first few months. Cold and hungry and just…terrible.”

“Didn’t you want to go back?”

“I didn’t have anything to go back to, really.” Daniel shrugged. “It got better though. I met another traveller, Azim. A horse merchant all the way from Agrabbah, and fell in with him. He had such beautiful horses…and he knew how to survive in the desert. To him, the Enchanted Forest was a land of great bounty. Teeming with food and water and game to hunt. He taught me how to survive.”

“Did he teach you about horses?”

“Yes, and about fire.” Daniel hoisted Henry a little higher on his back. “To the Nomads –like Azim- fires and lamps have a great significance. They believe the lamp is the pinnacle of human engineering. A vessel that will let you hold fire in the palm of your hand without being burned. Something that –up until the lantern’s invention- only magic users had been able to do.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“I suppose it’s a paltry thing compared to flicking a switch and filling a room with light, but to the Nomads, it was heaven on earth. Azim thought I was wise beyond my years for bringing nothing else with me but a lantern…I didn’t want to tell him that it had been because I didn’t _have_ anything else and that I was afraid of the dark.” Daniel smiled and Henry giggled.

“But Azim could do such marvellous things with fire. He danced with it, juggled it, ate it, held it asleep in his pocket. All Nomads learned how to do it. They were burned, if they got too cocky or careless, but never badly. None of them ever completely forgot how dangerous an animal fire is.”

Henry was quiet for long moments, so long that Daniel had thought him asleep, before the hesitant question came.

“Daniel?”

“Yes?”

“Will…will you teach me about fire?”

“Why?”

“So I’m not afraid of it anymore.”

Daniel smirked.

“Of course. I’m no fire juggler, but I can teach you the basics.”

“Thanks.” Henry let out a pent up breath and then it morphed into a yawn.

Enough of this.

“Regina!” Daniel called and she twisted to look at him. She opened her mouth –no doubt to harass him for harassing her- but then her eyes landed on Henry.

Turning back to Rachel, she said something quickly and then turned to hurry over to them. Her heels clipped over the road in a jaunty trot and she arrived at their side with a grin. George clattered along behind her, having appointed himself her guardian whilst she was away from Daniel’s side.

“What’s this?” Regina squeezed Henry’s knee and he chuckled, flinching away from the tickle.

“We’re tired.” Daniel told her pointedly and she nodded.

“Sorry I was…plotting my next nefarious scheme actually.” She grinned up at them.

“Did Granny hire you?” Daniel started towards home, herding her with him.

“Oh no, don’t be foolish, she’s still cross with me for taking over the diner and chasing away her last chef. Besides, I have a job.” Regina patted her thigh and George trotted to heel.

“As a deputy. In the Sheriff’s department.” Daniel’s voice was flat.

“Well spotted.” Regina reached up and tapped his nose. “It was the uniform, wasn’t it? Dead giveaway.”

“Wouldn’t you rather do something a little less…”

“If you say ‘dangerous’ I shall be the first to point out the _sword_ _cut_ to your shirt.” Regina poked her finger through said hole and prodded him in the stomach.

“That’s different.”

“How so?” Regina tilted her head and smiled up at him sweetly.

“Trick question.” Henry murmured in Daniel’s ear. “Don’t answer that.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.” Daniel said instead.

“I’m not a great fan of it either, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.” Regina watched him for a long moment and then looked away, frowning. She just walked beside him for ten paces or so, gathering her words. “If I asked, would you give up working at the bar?”

“And do what instead? I have to earn money.”

“Why? I have more than enough money for both of us.” Regina shrugged her shoulders.

“I’m the man, I’m supposed to provide. That’s how it works.”

Regina stared at him.

“Danger.” Henry whispered. “Take it back. Take it back!”

“And I should stay at home barefoot and pregnant?”

“I don’t even know what that means.” Daniel shook his head at her. “But if you really want to have that conversation right here and now, let’s get into it.”

“Let’s not and say we did.” Regina turned away from him, shoulders, hunched and walked faster. Daniel let her overtake him and fume silently for a few moments.

He followed her across the street, passing the diner again and heading for home.

“That’s not how it works here.” Henry told Daniel. “Women get to do all the same stuff men do.”

“Really? Does the technology in this world allow them to piss standing up as well?”

Henry was silent a shocked moment and then burst out laughing.

“Okay, MOST of the stuff that guys do. Besides, you know that mom likes to get her own way. I think she kinda likes being on the good guys’ team too.”

Daniel heaved a sigh and had no response for that.

“I get you’re worried but…” Henry trailed off and Daniel jostled him.

“But what?”

“But she hasn’t had anyone to worry about her in a long, long, time.” Henry propped his chin on top of Daniel’s head again. “Sometimes I think she never had someone before you came along either.”

“She didn’t.” Daniel’s voice darkened a shade. “At least, she didn’t have anyone that worried _enough_.”

“What happened to her, Daniel?”

Daniel sighed and walked in silence for long moments. Vainly hoping the boy might just fall asleep before he had to answer but realising eventually that it was a futile wish. Henry had learned Regina’s tenacity well.

“Regina was spoiled…but not in the way we let you think with our story earlier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Regina was given too much of everything she didn’t need. All she wanted, all she _needed_ was someone to love her enough. To love her enough to risk her mother. I thought that it was me. I thought that I would be the one to take her away from it all but…but I was too STUPID.” Daniel huffed out a harsh breath and shook his head. “This isn’t my story to tell.”

“She’ll never tell me herself.” It wasn’t an argument from the boy –it would seem he was finally learning- just a somewhat sad statement of fact. “She thinks I’m too delicate to know the truth.”

“I think that image is eroding a little bit.” Daniel chuckled. “Especially with you picking fights with the school bullies.”

“Yeah…I kinda feel bad about that.”

“Good.” Daniel hitched him a little higher over his back. “When you begin to get okay with it, that’s when you have to watch out. The darkness in us has uses, Henry, but we need to beware of it using us.”

Henry was silent long moments, absorbing that, and they both watched Regina cut a proud figure striding down the street away from them.

She turned her head, looking both ways before stepping out onto the street, and looked fierce with her irritation. Her sculpted face about as warm as a marble statue, her dark coat blending her with the shadows, her hair a little too wild and the gigantic silvery wolf trotting at her side as docile as a puppy, all of it added to the image she had portrayed for so long.

Cold, unfeeling, monstrous.

But then she looked back at them and her face softened, her lips quirked in a smirk and then she remembered she was mad at Daniel and turned away, striding out onto the road.

“She gave up, didn’t she?” Henry’s voice was quiet. “People didn’t look out for her and she tried and tried and tried on her own and then you were taken away and she…gave in.”

Daniel remained silent. Waiting for Henry to finish his thought.

“It makes me sad.” Henry decided after a moment. “It makes me mad too. I know she did bad stuff and a lot of people died because of what she did and…all that, but I see now. She wouldn’t have done it unless there was nothing else to do.” Henry struggled with putting it into words, but kept trying. “I think I see _her_ now. I think I get it. She wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. I don’t think anyone else would have fought the darkness harder than my mom.”

Daniel smiled when he heard the pride in Henry’s voice.

“It just makes me that crazy mad sad that she didn’t have anyone to help her and she lost.”

“She didn’t lose, Henry. She might have given up for a while. She might have let the darkness take over, let it do the fighting, but she never let it have all of her. If that was true, she never would have adopted you. She never would have wanted a happy ending.”

“I’m beginning to not like happy endings.” Henry’s voice was a tired grumble. “I much prefer beginnings. Endings –any endings- suck.”

Daniel chuckled and finally caught up to Regina at the gate to the Mayoral Mansion. She held it open for them, not saying a word, and the expression on her face made it unclear whether or not she had heard any of their conversation.

They all trooped into the house in silence and Regina’s irritation put an icy pall over them.

George was oblivious to it all and set about exploring this new place. There were all kinds of interesting smells to be smelled and things he had to roll on to make them his.

Daniel crouched, letting Henry down and the boy yawned cavernously.

“Bedtime.” Regina smoothed his hair back and he smiled sleepily. “You want anything for the pain?”

“Nah.” Henry stepped closer to her and hugged her fiercely. “Just to be here.” His voice was quiet and muffled into her jacket. “Thanks for fighting to come back.”

Regina frowned, having no earthly idea what he was talking about, but smiled in bemusement when he tugged her down, kissed her on the cheek and then tottered off towards the stairs without another word.

Regina watched him go for a long moment and then turned to look up at Daniel. She arched a brow at him.

“He sees you.” Daniel shrugged, not knowing how else to explain it. “Finally.”

A range of emotions washed over her face at the announcement and she finally settled on something like wary resignation.

Daniel stepped closer to her and turned her to face him by tugging on the lapels of her coat.

“He sees what I see; a woman who just wants to be loved…and drive me crazy with running around on daring adventures with Prince-sodding-Charming.”

“They’re hardly daring adventures.” Regina murmured, allowing him to reel her in closer.

“The last time you and he went on a night out, you got shot, turned into a werewolf for a little bit and then turned someone else into a wolf permanently.” Daniel sighed. “I dread to think what might happen if you ever get drunk together.”

Regina tilted her head and shrugged. She couldn’t very well argue with that.

“It’s not very wise for witches to get drunk. We start getting… _ideas._ ” Her fingers crept into the tear in his tee shirt again. “Terrible ideas.”

“Really?” Daniel’s lips twitched in an almost smirk.

“I remember when Rumple rescued me from Charming’s firing squad,” Regina set to investigating the rip in Daniel’s tee shirt a little more thoroughly.

 It occurred to him then that she had eaten very little but had polished off three bottles of wine between herself and Ruby…and Regina didn’t _always_ have a werewolf’s metabolism.

“Remind me, this was when you were allies?”

“Well…not really. He had just screwed me into never being able to kill Snow or Charming…hence the whole curse thing.” Regina waved it away and hoped he didn’t hear the little ripping sounds coming from the tee shirt she was now industriously tugging on. “Anyway, we got wasted together and I convinced him that I had heard of this witch that could fly on a broom.”

“On a broom?”

“Hmm.” The bottom half of the front of Daniel’s tee shirt mysteriously disappeared. “Which is preposterous. Of all the things to do in order to fly, enchanting a broom? Moronic.”

“Or…neither of you could do it.” Daniel had a dreadful sense of where this story was headed.

“Oh, we could do it,” Regina assured him, “but we fast learned that you should never drink and fly.”

“Any broken bones?”

“My pride, mostly. I landed in a tree –after a fashion- Rumple…was worse off.” Regina smirked wickedly. “I don’t think he walked right for weeks.”

Her fingers slipped under his shirt and she stepped closer to him. Smiling up at him with that soft secret smile of hers. She dragged a nail, bumping and shuddering, down over the stapled scar on his stomach and Daniel’s eyes darkened with intent.

“Right here?”

“Hmm.” She almost purred.

“Henry’s just upstairs.”

“He’ll be asleep soon.”

“Not _that_ asleep.”

“I can be quiet.”

“You _liar._ ” Daniel smirked at her and she chuckled, leaning heavily into him. Her hands tickled up over his chest and her arms wound around his neck.

“I suppose you’re right.” Her lips brushed against his and he leaned into her, intent on kissing her senseless despite his words against it.

“Mooo-ooom?” Henry’s voice floated down the stairs and echoed off the marble floor and stone walls.

Regina closed her eyes and smiled, heaving a sigh. She rocked down onto the flat of her feet and half turned to the staircase.

“Henry?”

“Why is the hall carpet now grass and flowers?”

Regina pursed her lips. Well, she certainly wasn’t telling him the real reason.

“I liked the look of it?” She called back instead and there was a moment of thoughtful silence from upstairs.

“Right…”

“Go and tuck him in.” Daniel propelled her towards the stairs. “I’ll lock up and settle George.”

“How domestic.” Regina let her hand trail down his front for a moment, drawing away only once she’d undone his belt buckle and pulled a growl from him.

Daniel huffed a breath and watched his tipsy woman chuckle her way towards the stairs and amble her way up them.

Regina, for her part, was smirking to herself and fast realising that she was unable to undo the buttons of her coat and walk up the stairs at the same time. She hadn’t realised how much wine she had drunk until she’d found herself intent of having Daniel right then and there up against the front door.

 _That_ was a conversation she certainly wasn’t ready to have with Henry just yet. In fact, she’d propel him towards Emma if he ever asked it and the Saviour was there to do parental type things. It was high time that Miss Swan took on some of the less savoury aspects of being a responsible adult.

Now, if only she could figure out how to get them back so she could do so, Regina’s life might become fractionally easier in that respect.

Though she still wasn’t entirely sure that she wouldn’t drop Snow into a hell dimension if opportunity arose.

Still, one day of redemption at a time.

“Henry?” Regina kicked off her shoes and padded barefoot through the grassy hallway. She went to open his door and misjudged it, careening off the doorframe and cursing under her breath.

“You’re drunk.” Henry chuckled at her. He sat on his bed, already having changed into his pyjamas and tucked himself in.

“I am not.”

“Mom, you just blamed the doorframe of walking into you.”

“It came out of nowhere.” Regina finally managed to get out of her coat and tossed it over the end of Henry’s bed, flopping down to sit on it.

“To be fair, the door was there first.”

“Henry,” Regina swept a clutch of her hair back with her hand, “nobody likes a smartass.”

Henry giggled and Regina bounced her way up the bed so she could sit beside him. Grinning when it made him laugh harder. She reached out and took his hand in hers, watching the way their fingers tangled together. She smiled a softer smile.

“I’m glad you’re here.” She said simply.

“I’m glad I’m here too.” Henry told her, smiling with a smile that was so much like hers. Not like Idiots one or two, or Swan, but her.

“My son.” She stroked her fingers through his hair and then kissed his forehead. She spoke into his hair. “I have missed you.”

“I’m here now.” Henry tangled his arms about her waist and she held him back. “I’m sorry I had to leave.”

“So am I.” Regina rested her cheek on top of his head and rubbed his back. “I am so sorry I hurt you, made you think you were crazy…gave you nightmares. I never wanted to hurt you. Never.”

“You didn’t cause the nightmares.” Henry pulled away and looked her in the eye. His expression fierce and earnest. “I don’t know what did, but it couldn’t be you, you make me feel better.”

“Hey, don’t rule it out. My schemes always come back to bite me.” Regina smiled at him, though there was a shadow of sadness to it.

“Will you read to me?” Henry said suddenly, wanting neither of them to be sad.

“Really?” Regina sat back a little in surprise. She hadn’t read to him since before the Book had come between them.

“Yeah.” Henry lunged for his backpack and rummaged furiously for a moment. He pulled out one of his school binders and thrust it into her hands. “Read this.”

Regina blinked down at the folder and then glanced up at Henry, a little bemused, and slowly opened it as if expecting some sort of trick. She blinked rapidly when confronted with the front page.

“The Adventures of Supermog and Bad Wolf.” Regina ran her fingers over the comic book style cover. It had been meticulously drawn and coloured with markers.

It showed the eponymous hero, a white furred hybrid of cat and man dressed in a form fitting outfit of blue and black, fighting against his nemesis. A woman –who bore an uncanny resemblance to Regina she noticed- with a pelt of dark fur and a tail. She wore a crown shaped like a snarling wolf and a billowing black outfit that –Regina had to admit- she would have worn at one point.

Regina glanced up at Henry to find him watching her with wide and wary eyes, chewing his lip.

Regina moved onto the next page and smiled when she saw familiar drawings. She flipped further through the comic book and her grin grew wider when she saw pages she didn’t recognise.

“You finished it?”

“For you.” Henry fidgeted a little more. “You said it was your favourite and, I gave up on it because I couldn’t get the villain right. Originally it was Dogmata and he was just…bad for badness’ sake, he didn’t have a motivation or…anyway. I get it now. Villains aren’t all bad and heroes aren’t all good.”

Regina smiled and reached out tousling his hair.

“Well, at least she has a decent dress sense.” Regina folded one leg over the other and propped the folder open on her knee. She flipped back to the first page and opened her mouth to begin reading.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Can you…can you do all the voices and stuff? Like you used to?”

Regina smirked.

“If there is another way to tell a story, Henry, it’s not one that I know.” Regina opened the book again and cleared her throat, speaking in a lighter voice and with a different accent.

“’Late one night, in the barren wastes outside Main City, a solitary tomcat wandered in search of a good home…’”

 

**Later…**

 

Regina was awake and out of bed before she even realised why she was up. She faltered, Daniel’s tee shirt halfway down over her chest, wondering what the hell she was doing.

“Regina?” Daniel was sitting up in bed and she frowned at him.

“I don’t…”

Another scream pierced the night and Regina hurled herself from the room, yanking Daniel’s tee shirt all the way on and barrelling into Henry’s room.

“Henry!” She was at his side in an instant and her presence alone seemed enough to draw the boy from his nightmares.

He sat up, still screaming, and woke with a start. He hurled himself into her arms and she caught him against her, nearly bowled off the bed he had tackled her so fiercely.

“It’s alright, I’m here now.” Regina hugged him tightly and he shuddered in her arms. “It’s alright.”

Henry clutched her tightly, sobbing great heaving breaths into her neck and Regina looked over when a shadow fell over her.

Daniel stood over them both, looking bleary and half awake but having had the presence of mind to pull on a pair of jeans.

“We okay?” Daniel scrubbed a hand over his face and into his hair, trying to wake up a little more.

“I think so.” Regina stroked Henry’s hair as he calmed himself and then carefully peeled him away. “Henry, can you…?”

“Ah!” Henry flinched away from her and Regina went on high alert. It was only then she smelled it.

Burned flesh.

“Henry, let me see.” The light snapped on with a flick of Regina’s fingers directed at the light bulb and she gently took his arm in her hands.

“It hurts!” Henry grimaced against the pain and Regina went cold all over when she saw the burns swirled over Henry’s skin from the back of his hand to past his elbow.

“Gods…” She lifted her hand and hovered it over his wounds, magic gilded her fingers but she didn’t dare even try and heal it. It was a magic wound and she had no idea what her particular brand of magic might do to it.

“Come on.” Regina gripped Henry by the elbows and pulled him from the bed. His feet dragged, uncoordinated by the pain, and she supported him through to the bathroom. Daniel was already there, filling the sink with lukewarm water and Regina wasted no time in pushing Henry’s entire arm under the spray, steeling herself against his cry of pain.

“It hurts!”

“I know, sweetheart.” Regina hugged him with one arm, pressing a kiss to his head, even as her other hand forced him to keep his burn under the water.

“It really hurts.”

“I know.” She didn’t tell him that it was a good thing. No doubt he’d have trouble believing her but –with burns like these- pain meant his nerve endings hadn’t been melted away.

“What can I do?”

Regina twisted to look up at Daniel. She had completely forgotten he was there. She wasn’t used to having someone to help her and she made a snap decision.

“Hold him, I need to make a call.” Regina hugged Henry tightly again. “Stay strong, brave boy. I’ll be right back.”

Then Regina twisted past Daniel with only a squeeze of his arm as thanks and staggered out into the hallway. For a moment her brain –which was still predominantly asleep- took a moment to catch up and then she hurled herself into action.

She darted back into her room, snatched up the phone and walked into the closet all in one move. She hit the numbers blindly with her thumb and clapped the handset to her ear, listening to the burring ringing on the other end.

She tore clothes from the racks, picking all black because she wasn’t up to much colour coordination right then, and began to drag them on. Clumsy because she was one handed but determined to get through to the person on the other end of the line.

The answer was eventual and displeased.

_“What?”_

“Rumple.” Regina tilted and landed on the bed, dragging one boot on, trapping the phone between her ear and her shoulder and zipping it up.

 _“Regina?_ ”

Regina was momentarily thrown by the apparent concern in his tone but she dismissed it as selfishness on his part. He had to know something would be terribly wrong for her to phone in the middle of the night and believe Belle might be in danger because of it.

There were very few things –after all- that would spook the Evil Queen and the Dark One both.

“I need your help, it’s Henry, something’s wrong.” Regina took the phone away only for the bare second it took to whip Daniel’s tee shirt over her head and toss it away.

 _“What happened?_ ” Rumple’s tone was brisk and to the point, his voice muffled by scrubbing a hand over his face.

“He’s been having nightmares. I didn’t know until today, I thought them simply stress related but they’re not…he’s burning, Rumple. Something is burning my little boy.” The panic began to set in hard and fast then and Regina struggled violently against it, distracting herself with the puzzle of how to put on her bra and stay on the phone at the same time.

A panic that was intensified by the silence on the other end of the line.

Was he going to just leave her? Was he going to abandon her son to this?

That was…that was against the _rules._

Rumple and Regina’s relationship was a staggeringly complex one but it was one of the longest she’d had. The only other person that could claim to know her as well would be Maleficent and she was _dead_.

They weren’t always allies and certainly not friends but they were…constants. Always there to fall back on. A trusted enemy would probably be the best civilian description of it and even then that lacked the depth and range of how they really reacted around one another. Right now they were idling somewhere in neutral. Yes, Rumple’s last little spat with her had been to the tune of trying to suck her soul out with a wraith but she had brought that on by having kept Belle from him for all those years.

 Neither of them had done anything to harass the other recently which meant that alliance was more likely than not.

It was a roll of the dice, but one she had been confident to bet on.

“Rumple?” Regina stilled, halfway through pulling her shirt on and the response came quickly with the air of someone shaking themselves out of a stupor. Not unexpected at three in the morning.

“ _Bring him to the shop. All of my things are there.”_

“We’ll be there in ten.” Regina hung up the phone and tossed it onto the bed, leaving the room before her shirt was even buttoned. She rummaged industriously until she came up with Henry’s shoes and jacket and returned to the bathroom.

She nearly tripped over George in the process and the wolf yelped in reproach. He staggered clumsily, his leg having been removed so he could sleep more comfortably, and she afforded him a quick pet on the head for comfort before continuing into the bathroom.

Henry sat on the toilet with the seat down, tears staining his face, and Daniel knelt in front of him, examining the burns lacerating the boy’s arm. Regina’s chest clenched uncomfortably at any sign of pain from Henry but she steeled herself against it. She could have a breakdown about it later, right now she needed to help her son.

“Here, put these on.” Regina handed the shoes to Daniel and held out her hands. A plume of purple smoke announced the arrival of a box of cling-film and she peeled a reel of the staticky stuff back and set to wrapping it about Henry’s arm.

“What’s that for?” Henry was trying not to sniffle but it was a work in progress.

“It will protect your arm under your clothes, stop it from peeling away under the material.” Regina was as gentle as she could be but she knew it had to hurt. She had been burned many times playing with fire as a young sorceress. She knew well the agony of burns.

“It hurts.”

“I know, baby.” Regina forced a smile for him and smoothed his hair back. “Put on your jacket.”

Between her and Daniel, they managed to get Henry into enough clothes to go outside and Regina knelt in front of him again.

“I’m going to make you sleepy, alright? It’ll help with the…”

“No!” Henry clutched her hand when she raised it to his forehead. “I don’t want to sleep!”

“No, honey, no. I’m not putting you to sleep, I’m just going to make you very sleepy so it doesn’t hurt as much. You’ll still be too awake to dream. I promise.”

Henry looked at her with wild and panicked eyes, his chest heaving and Regina was thoroughly disconcerted to know that it wasn’t just his smile that they shared. He looked afraid exactly the same way she did.

“You promise?”

“Cross my heart.” Regina managed a smile for him and his hold gradually relaxed on her wrist, allowing her to lay her palm over his forehead. The spell shimmered at the skin on skin contact and Henry’s head began to droop almost immediately. His eyes fluttered, trying to stay open and failing, and he tilted forward, falling into her arms.

Regina wasted no time and slid her arms about his waist, lifting him into her arms. Had she not had the spells lain into her bones that granted her immortal strength, she’d never have managed his weight, but that wasn’t the case at all. He was awkward to carry, being nearly as tall as she was even now, but she managed.

“I can take him.” Daniel reminded her that he was there again and she pressed her lips together and shook her head.

“No.”

“Regina?”

“You…you have to stay here.”

Daniel’s frown deepened.

“Why?”

“I…” Regina sidled out of the bathroom before he could stop her and was aware of him following her towards the stairs. “We’re going to see Rumple.”

 _“What?”_ The snarl that rumbled from within Daniel halted her on the stairs and she turned slowly to look at him.

“I have to.”

“No, you don’t.” Daniel started down the stairs after her and she turned away quickly, retreating from him. “There is no earthly reason that you and Henry should be going to the Dark One at ANY time, let alone in the middle of the night when Henry is hurt and you’re terrified!”

“And that’s exactly why I have to go!” Regina reached the bottom of the stairs and spun to face him. “My little boy is hurt and there’s nothing I can do. Rumple _can_.”

“That’s not to say he will!”

“He will.”

“Why?”

“He has to.”

“That’s not smart, Regina, and you know it. You go to him now and he can name his price. He’s already torn holes in your _soul_. What else can he take from you?”

“To help Henry?” Regina ground to a halt when he was suddenly in front of her, blocking her from the door. “Anything he wants.”

“It’s a burn, Regina, he’s not dying.” Daniel was trying to gentle his voice but the thought of her going to Rumple-fucking-stiltskin of all people drove him wild. “We have time to find another way.”

“No we don’t!” Regina hissed at him. “Do you have any idea the forces that are brought into play in order to carry energy from the dream world into the waking one? Energy enough to physically manifest?”

“No.”

“Well I do.” Regina hitched Henry higher on her hip, his head resting in the crook of her neck. “Trust me when I tell you it makes even me nervous. It may take Rumple and I combined to lift whatever spell it is that ensnares my son and –by all the gods- I shall see it done. Now…get out of my way.”

“Regina, there has to be another way. Anyone but Rumplestiltskin.”

“The only other person that might know something about it is the Blue Faerie, do you really want me to go to her?”

“What about Rachel?”

“She can heal the symptoms, not take care of the root of the problem.” Regina sighed. “This is something that needs to be stopped now. If we can’t…Henry can’t sleep soundly. I may have done many things poorly as a mother, but Henry has always slept well because he knew I was here to keep him safe. I will NOT break that trust to him.”

“Regina, listen to me, I know you’re frightened, I know you feel out of your depth but _listen_.” Daniel gently approached her, trying to get through to her. “If you give Rumplestiltskin an open invitation to ruin you with one of his ‘favours’ what do you think he’s going to do?”

“He’ll do what he always does.” Regina sighed and looked away then. “Keep his word and fuck me over all at the same time.”

“Please, Regina, don’t do this.” Daniel’s hands rested on her shoulders and he waited until she looked back up at him. “We can find another way.”

Regina pressed her lips together and looked saddened. She slowly shook her head.

“Daniel, there may be moments when ‘love finds a way’ but they are never going to be within my life. I can’t afford optimism and faith, I need to help Henry and there is a way for me to do it. I’m going to take the chance.”

“You’ll take a chance on the Dark One but you won’t believe in me?”

“Daniel…!” Regina cut herself off before she said something needlessly cruel. “This is not about you and I. This is about Henry. I need to help him and Rumple is the only one available to do so. If you could do anything I would ask you. In a heartbeat I would pick you over Rumple, every single time, but I can’t. You can’t. Not here and not now.”

Daniel’s jaw clenched into a line of granite and he looked sharply away from her, trying to muscle down the stark urge to start throwing things. She gentled him into looking at her with a hand on his cheek.

“I love you. You know I do and –while I have to do this without you- I’ll always come back to _you_.”

“At least let me come with you.”

“I’ll not put Hyde in a room with Rumplestiltskin, not now. They’ll either ally with one another or try to murder each other and I have the time to deal with neither.” She quirked a smile. “That’s not to mention your penchant for punching things you don’t like in the head.”

Daniel was not to be so easily dissuaded.

“I hate this. I need to be there. You need someone to keep you grounded. Henry makes you foolish.”

Regina dropped her hand from his cheek and took a step back.

“As foolish as declaring war on the faeries?” Regina shook her head sharply before he could retort. “You know what, I don’t have time for this. I need to get to Rumple.” She skirted Daniel quickly and moved for the door.

“And why is that? Why do you always have time for everyone but me? Haven’t we had enough taken from us?”

Regina froze in the doorway, her hand tightening on the doorknob until the metal creaked. Her shoulders tense and her spine ramrod straight. She turned to look at him with glowing eyes in the dark.

“Goading me into a fight will not keep me here with you. All it does is endanger your life and I do not think I deserve such a cruelty from you as to be intentionally maddened into lashing out.” Her words were clipped.

“I can take anything you dish out.”

“No, Daniel, you can’t. You really, really, can’t.” Regina’s voice was cold.

“Why won’t you believe me?”

“Because you don’t see me.” Regina snapped suddenly. “You say that I don’t see you, that I see you as some paragon of virtue and that’s not true because I see EVERYTHING. I see a naïve young man who doesn’t want to believe that the woman he loves is as dark as all the rumours say she is. I see wilful stupidity from someone I know to be smarter than most self-proclaimed scholars when it comes to my past. Whitewashing it beyond all sense and stubbornly refusing to accept that I am _bad._ That I have wicked friends and that sometimes I need to use those bastard friends of mine when goodness and light just doesn’t cut it!”

Regina cut herself off before she could get any worse and stood panting in the doorway. She couldn’t see his expression in the dim light of the hallway and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

 “I love you, Daniel. You know I do. I _told_ you that it would be a burden and I’m _trying_ to be better but all I know is evil…and being alone.”

“You need to start trusting me. You need to start believing that I’m here to stay.”

“Daniel,” Regina gave a brittle laugh, “there are still times when I’m convinced that all of this is in my head. That you really died all over again back in that stable and it’s finally driven me completely mad. How could one such as I have such a good life? In what possible universe could that happen?”

“I am here. This is real.” Daniel took a step towards her and she held up a hand to halt him. It cut into him like a knife.

“And I _want_ to believe that but…happiness is a luxury to me, not a right. I love you and it fills me with such a joy that I don’t even know what to do with myself but I don’t…need you…right now.”

The silence stretched taut and pounding between them and she looked down at the floor.

“Will you wait for me?” Her voice was small in the echoing hallway.

“If I must.” His voice was tight with anger and it was a very real act of will to hold himself in place while she nodded sadly and left, letting the door swing shut behind her.

Daniel watched her go and felt his teeth grind. His hands balled into fists so tightly that his knuckles crackled and his eyes gleamed in the dark.

This was not _right_.

She shouldn’t be going off to face her oldest tormentor by herself. She’d done nothing but get mired deeper and deeper into his web in the past and it was madness to think that she might somehow come out on top this time around. 

“Then again, you could always treat her like an equal and believe her when she tells you that she’s completely mad.”

Daniel stiffened when the voice, that terrible voice, echoed throughout the confines of his head. He could hear it, but not with his ears.

“Go away, beast.”

“Hmm, no. This is the closest I’ve come to getting out since we last scented her blood and now I can smell a different kind of salt.” Hyde’s voice was needling and cruel. “You made her _cry_. Now who’s the beast?”

“Shut up.” Daniel turned away and refused to look at the reflection that wasn’t a reflection. He could see glowing green eyes follow him on the edge of his vision but he didn’t dare give the beast credence and look at him directly. He was in no state to control himself right now.

“Oh, a witty and well thought retort. You wound me.” Hyde gleefully mocked.

Daniel ignored him and headed for the stairs, not knowing where he was going, only away, but Regina had mirrors on every damn flat surface and his not-reflection followed him easily.

“It’s a pity, really, all that strength and no brains behind the brawn. No wonder she goes elsewhere for stimulation of a more intellectual sort.”

Daniel rolled his eyes.

“Oh, I’m not talking about intellectual conversations, debates on politics and moral issues, I’m talking about the _war._ ”

Daniel continued up the stairs but his steps faltered when his curiosity reared its head.

“The war that she fights every day. To be good enough, to be better. It’s no challenge with you, you accept her as she is, any way she comes but the others…much tougher cookies.”

Daniel snorted but Hyde continued.

“Think about it, meat-suit, she still sees you as that young lad that wooed her with picnics and horse stunts, not as a man. Not as an equal. Regina, my beautiful dark queen, requires an _equal_. Someone who can revel in every part of her.”

Daniel’s jaw clenched.

“Oh? Was that a nerve?” Hyde chuckled. “It’s hardly something new. I know you think it yourself. Lie awake at night and watch the shadows on the ceiling, wondering if she’d trust you more if you were draped in more of those shadows yourself. Face it, boy, you’re just not mean enough.”

Daniel reached the grassy landing and huffed out a breath. Trying to ignore the monster whispering in his ear. This was how he’d do it. Tell him what he wanted to hear, tempt him with what he wanted, offer him a way to do it.

“I’m not saying you should go out and murder twenty people. Aside from being quite tiring, I know you don’t have the stomach for it. No, I simply point out that you’ve lied to her before to get what you want. Manipulation is your game, Daniel, and you are far too good at it because she never knows you’ve done it. You need to do it with just a _little_ less skill than usual and she’ll spot it.”

Daniel made it to the bathroom and turned the shower on, listening to the hot spray hit the tile and hoping it might drown Hyde out.

No such luck. His shadow loomed large and dark in the mirror over the sink and still Daniel didn’t turn to give it his full attention.

“Thank about it, you don’t have to _successfully_ kill the Dark One in order to show that you’re capable of it.”

Daniel whipped around without meaning to and froze when he came face to face with Hyde and his reflection both.

The photograph in the paper didn’t do him justice.

He was terrifying.

Perhaps more so because he now looked a lot more like Daniel.

This version of Hyde, this twisted reflection, stood only a little taller than Daniel and again only a little broader. His skin was stone grey, his hair a long tangle down about his face and shoulders. Daniel’s already sharp face had an inhuman cornered look to the cheekbones, those eyes gleamed a burning yellow green from deep within the monster’s skull and there was an eerie green light that matched the fiend’s eyes that leaked in wisps and dust motes from the seam behind the silver scar.

Hyde’s lips –for this more human form actually had lips- peeled back over too many pearlescent teeth in a grin that still nearly split him from ear to ear.

Daniel seethed out a breath and shook his head.

“You’re mad.”

“Yes.” Hyde’s voice was so deep that it shivered the mirror in its frame and Daniel couldn’t tell if it just was all in his head anymore. “That’s why the queen loves me so.”

“She doesn’t love you.”

Hyde pouted and lifted his silver clawed hand, holding his finger and thumb just a little apart.

“She doesn’t.” Daniel repeated with a granite tone. He huffed out a breath and decided he would gain nothing by fooling himself. “Lust –maybe- but not love.”

“Now, now, no need to get shirty.” Hyde waved it away. “Lust is a part of love and it’s not like you haven’t noticed other women. Ruby, for example.” Hyde spoke over Daniel before he could voice his protests. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, you’re only human after all.”

“Piss off.” Daniel’s patience was running dry.

“Is that any way to speak to a friend?”

“You and I are NOT friends. A wolf is not friends with the flea upon his back.”

“Oh, come now, it’s much more of a symbiosis than that.” Hyde admonished him. “We both have a bit of give and take going on. Why not use that to its full advantage?”

“Hmm, let me think, because you’re an evil psychopath?”

“So’s your woman, but I don’t see you throwing that in her face.”

“Regina is different.”

“I quite agree, the cleavage makes up for a lot.” Hyde hitched his shoulder on the frame of the mirror and folded his massive arms over his chest, grinning horribly.

“Watch your tone, beast.”

“Or what? You’ll smash the mirror? Bloody your knuckles? Give away who you’ve been talking to and how to dearest Regina?” Hyde chuckled. “Perhaps you are as dumb as you look.”

“I’m sure there are other ways to make you suffer.” Daniel bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile.

“True, though I don’t hold out much hope for you figuring them out anytime soon. Still,” Hyde held up a clawed finger with a smirk, “on the note of suffering, would you not like to repay dearest ‘Wumple’ for all the pain and suffering he inflicted on our queen?”

“Even you should know better than to tangle with Rumplestiltskin.”

“ _Stop_ saying his name.” Hyde gritted out.

“Afraid?”

“Of your stupidity if nothing else.” Hyde snapped. “You summon him by speaking his name, do you not think there isn’t some part of him that is always attuned to the sound of it?”

Daniel frowned.

“Why do you think Regina refers to him as ‘Rumple’? It’s not like she holds a great deal of affection for the creature.”

Daniel inhaled deeply and realised that made perfect sense. Hyde being right and offering him sound advice in that regard did nothing to improve his mood.

“Now…can you think of any way that might be put to our advantage?”

“You can’t be serious.” Daniel shook his head. “The Dark One cannot be killed.”

“But he _can_ be ended, contained or otherwise neutered.” Hyde looked up at the ceiling smiling, at the thought of fricasseed testicles no doubt. “Apologies, I meant neutralised of course.”

“Of course.” Daniel rolled his eyes and moved to the sink, pulling the plug with a gurgle and watching the water swirl away.

“Ignoring me won’t work, boy. I live in your heart.”

“That doesn’t give you power over me.” Daniel disagreed with a deceptively mild tone. “Your lies hold no weight with me. You cannot hurt…Rumple.”

“Pish posh,” Hyde enunciated, seemingly enjoying having lips, “I am a scientist without peer. Even locked inside a heart made of glass I could whisper enough to that idiot Frankenstein to protect myself in the new body he had for me.” He tapped a steely claw against the silvery staples of the scar with a chiming sound. “What did she call it? A magical faraday cage? Your _body_ is now the antithesis to everything that covers Rumple’s cowardice. You might not be able to _kill_ him but you can destroy him.”

“Why should I believe any of this? You just want out. I’m supposed to believe you can be trotted out to take care of my problems and want nothing in return?”

“You plan it yourself with the wolf…or was I not supposed to know that?”

“I can see out of your eyes, why should you not see out of mine?” Daniel leaned against the sink nonchalantly.

“Ah, not quite as stupid as you appear. Good. That’s good.” Hyde reached up and tunnelled a huge hand through his wild hair, apparently just because he liked the feel of himself.

Daniel tried his best to ignore it.

“Still, why try and leash me when we can work together?”

“Because I don’t trust you?”

“I’m wounded.” Hyde pouted. “You cannot deny that we could do great things together. My brains and your brawn. An unstoppable combination.”

“Your psychosis is more like.” Daniel huffed, growing tired of this. “I’d say you’re an animal but even they don’t kill for sport. You are a monster in every sense of the word. Inside and out. If you get free, you’ll kill everything in sight and then you’ll kill Regina for she will not let you remain free and she’ll die rather than live without me again.”

“And herein is the crux of it.” Hyde agreed. He didn’t look pleased about it either. “My unlimited freedom comes at a price even I shall not pay. She holds too much affection for you. Even if I were to free myself –which is not impossible by the way- killing you would gain me nothing. Regina requires you to be her usual magnificent self. As insipid as that is.”

Daniel smirked.

“Oh, do not look so pleased with yourself for you are NOT everything to her either. I told you before and you still do not believe, but soon you will see. She needs the darkness. It is part of her. Stifling it for your sake hurts her as much as pulling my heart from your chest would you. She cannot be her whole self around you and it’s _killing her._ ”

“That is NOT true.” Daniel growled as well as any monster might.

“You wouldn’t be angry if it wasn’t.” Hyde grinned leaning closer to his side of the mirror. “You are the moth and she is the flame, boy. If she lets you too close she knows she will burn and consume you into ash. You may be able to lift a car with one hand but even you cannot withstand her at her fullest. You need _me_ for that and that is my price.”

“Price for what? You have nothing I want.”

“Give me to her and I will teach you how to be a threat that even the Dark One will avoid. Let her have me and I shall show you how science is nought but magic explained. Let the queen be the queen and I will turn you into her king.”

“You’d change me.” Daniel shook his head. “I’ve fought my own darkness my whole life. I’ve been a would-be murderer from a young age and I’ll not go back to it.”

“You plan to take up the sword!” Hyde threw his great arms wide, claws flashing in the harsh white light of the bathroom. “How is this different?”

“Because I control the sword, not the other way around!” Daniel snarled, for a moment, just as bestial as Hyde.

“You only think that. You have never held a weapon before, only your own ferocity and it is _magnified_ with an intensity you can barely comprehend by the weight of metal in your palm. You already know that you are not enough by yourself. You already plan to change it. Why cast aside the one thing that will keep all threats at bay?”

“I will not become a monster. I will not become you.” Daniel shook his head. “Let them come. I’ll fight them myself.”

“Idiot boy!” Hyde snarled. “Your pride may well cost more than you can pay. Do you truly think the Dark One or the North Star shall come for you head on? They have not survived this long by fighting _fair_. They shall come for Ruby, they shall come for the boy. Even the doctor shall have a price on her head. They will drown you in the blood of Regina’s friends because that is the greatest harm they can deal to her and she is your greatest weakness too.” Hyde looked disgusted at such naivety.

“I will not be you.”

“Then be something _better._ Be something all the more horrifying to them because it is _good_. I offer to be your weapon and you shall be mine. A monster gilded in the armour of a good man? Unstoppable. Be their opposite, be their poison. I have not lied. You know what I want, you know what I shall gain now think on what you shall have in return. We can be trapped with one another or we can be each other’s freedom.”

“If I let you out, Regina will kill us all. I’ll not be her death.”

“You are already.” Hyde chuckled a deep and shivering sound. “You are her ending, boy. Happy or no. She ends with you.”

“Be that as it may, I’ll not hurry it along.”

“No. You’ll just stand and do nothing while others do it for you.”

“I’m not doing _nothing_.” Daniel gritted.

“But you aren’t doing _everything_.” Hyde mocked him. “You said you would love her with everything you had. _Liar._ ”

“I do love her.”

“Love has no morals. Love has no right or wrong. Love can be a poison, it can be a cancer, it can be a slaver. Love is a great and terrible thing. Love can be a sanctuary as easily as it can be a hell.”

“What would you know about it?”

“I know that it can be a strength or it can be a weakness and right now, you are decidedly her latter. Now, you must ask yourself; if she did everything without rhyme or reason, if she was madness given form because of her love for you, how could you do anything less with your love for her?”

“This conversation is over.” Daniel had heard enough.

“Is it?” Hyde grinned that terrible grin even as he began to fade. “You hear me, boy, you _see_ me. Do you truly think that would be the case if you didn’t want me here?”

Daniel was saved from answering because the monster had finally faded and it was only his harrowed reflection that stared back at him, but he knew he was going to have to answer it at some point.

For Hyde was right.

Right now, as he was, he was not enough.

 


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28 – It Never Rains**

 

Regina ached.

Not just from the awkward position she was in either.

She lay on the cot in the back of Gold’s shop, Henry cuddled into her side, his injured arm mostly healed but still incredibly tender.

Gold had given Henry a charm to wear around his neck, something to help him control the dreamscape he found himself in, and had cheerfully dropped the bomb that this was all Regina’s fault.

She hadn’t known about the Red Room caveat of the curse. Up until the second she had found out about it, she hadn’t given a thought to it. Hadn’t cared a jot. In fact- had she known and had Henry not been afflicted- she would have been positively gleeful at the prospect of the dearest little Snow still suffering even after thirty years.

Still, it would seem there truly was no expiry date on her ill deeds coming back to bite her.

Honestly though, she had been steeped in bad karma since she was born. Having a mother like hers will do that. Surely even she was due some good vibes by now.

Though she doubted any number of good vibes would help her stop fucking up things with Daniel. It would seem she always would be a complete headcase when it came to the people she loved.

She just couldn’t…do it _right_.

She kept fucking up and couldn’t seem to stop herself.

Had she really had to leave Daniel behind?

Yes, Hyde was a danger, but when would he not be? Yes, Daniel had a habit of punching people he didn’t like, but he had controlled himself around Cora –barely- for all those years. He wasn’t a mindless beast. Yes, she was used to being alone but…shouldn’t she _try_ to get used to having someone on her side?

And therein was the rub.

She couldn’t wrap her head around it. No matter how much she loved him, how strong he was, how fiercely he wanted to protect her and how difficult Hyde made him to kill, it felt like she would always fear him being taken from her and she just _couldn’t_ submit to opening herself to that kind of hurt again. She knew it would break her, when it finally happened, she’d die with him no matter how soon it came or if it ever came at all, she could not survive losing him again. Academically she knew it, but her self-preservation wouldn’t let her surrender that last piece of herself and…and it was hurting Daniel.

She didn’t mean to, it wasn’t intentional, she wasn’t sure she could ever break herself of the habit, but…she was hurting him. The one person she had never believed herself capable of hurting and she was doing it anyway.

Regina sighed and buried her nose in Henry’s hair, stroking his cheek as he slept.

She loved her son. Loved him so much. He’d been all she’d had when everything else was gone. The only one ever to truly love her since Daniel…and Henry _needed_ her. He needed her in a way that Daniel didn’t.

Didn’t he?

Regina frowned when Daniel’s words came back to haunt her. He was right. She kept doing it. Without even thinking of the consequences, of the feelings of those most dear to her, she went off and spent time with others.

How many times would he stand for it?

How many times could she obliviously abandon him in favour of others before he…before he left her?

And that was what it boiled down to really.

Part of her, no matter how small, didn’t think he would stay.

Once he saw her, really saw all of her, he would go.

He might say that he wasn’t a paragon of virtue and she knew that to be true. She loved him anyway, flaws and all, but he still didn’t have a proper scale for everything she’d done. He’d read about it, been told about it, seen the pictures, but he’d never lived it.

And if he’d come here tonight, if Hyde had surfaced or Daniel had been unable to restrain himself and had punched the fucking _Dark One_ in the head…the queen would have come out roaring. Cackling and grinning and ripping hearts from chests, she’d have gone mad –no matter for how brief a time- and the damage would be done. Daniel would truly see her as she was and he would be repulsed.

She was a beast, a monster in a pretty skin, no better than Hyde.

If Daniel, her good Daniel, couldn’t fully hold the monster in check, if the sight of her blood brought Hyde swimming so close to the surface, let the beast free, how could she possibly hope to hold herself in? How could she stifle the dark part of herself when it _was_ herself?

How long before the last mask fell away –the Regina mask- and it was just the Evil Queen left?

Regina heard the jangle of the front door open and her eyes ticked to the curtain leading from the front of the shop through to the room where she lay with Henry.

It wasn’t Daniel, she’d have felt Daniel coming, but it was someone in a hurry.

The curtain was flung aside and Regina lifted a hand, pressing a finger to her lips in a silent warning.

David ground to a halt in his frantic hurry to get to Henry’s side and huffed out a slow sigh when he saw the boy sleeping peacefully.

Regina had called him not twenty minutes ago, after Henry was settled, and had given a quick recount of what had happened. David had shown enough sense to listen silently and had curtly announced he would be there as soon as he could and hung up on her.

Regina hadn’t been able to tell if he was angry then but all she could read from him now was relief.

“What’s going on?” David’s voice was low so as not to disturb Henry.

“He’s asleep now, Rumple gave him a charm.” Regina all but whispered in return.

“A charm that will allow him to sleep deeply all by himself.” Rumple limped into the back room. “In fact, you could carry him out of here right now and he wouldn’t even flicker an eyelid.”

Regina scowled at the thinly veiled hint and sat up slowly. She winced at the crackle her spine gave, the stiff muscles seizing in her neck and back from lying so carefully still for so long. She moved to get up, swinging a leg over Henry’s slumbering form and rising quickly.

Too quickly it turned out.

She squeaked when all sense of equilibrium just left her. Her arms flew wide in an attempt to catch herself and she would have fallen directly on top of Henry had Rumple not swept forward, cinched an arm around her waist, and bodily hauled her away.

Regina stood wide eyed, her head swimming, very close to just passing out. She wanted very badly to wrest herself from Rumple’s hold but wasn’t entirely sure that she wouldn’t just be setting herself up for a summit meeting with the floor.

Rumple, showing no evidence of a limp or need of his cane, held her up easily, watching her carefully.

“Forget to eat again, dearie?”

“I’m fine.” Regina hauled herself away from him and staggered over to a chair to sit instead. She leaned heavily on the arm and closed her eyes, her fist pressed to her mouth.

“Oh yes, you look the pinnacle of health.” Rumple chuckled to himself and smartly took himself out of Charming’s reach when the prince rounded on him with a fierce glower on his face.

“You okay?” Charming turned to Regina, his voice softer.

Regina nodded.

“You sure? You want me to call Daniel?”

“No.” Regina’s head snapped up and she realised –when she found both Rumple and Charming staring at her- that she had spoken a lot louder than she had intended. She continued in a softer tone. “No. I’m just stiff from lying still for so long.”

David and Rumple both watched her for a long moment and Regina tried her next tactic.

“Tea?”

“As the lady wishes.” Rumple mocked, but it was a gentle one, and turned away to find the tea service.

“So, how is he?” David sank down on his heels beside Regina and watched her with concern.

 He felt like everyone was slipping away from him and he could do nothing to stop it. He was the Sheriff, the prince, he was supposed to look out for everybody. Keep them safe from harm. He didn’t feel like it was turning out that way.

It was not a feeling he liked.

“I’m fine.” Her hand rested on his arm, reading him like a book. “Just feeling a few of my years, that’s all.”

David continued to look unhappy and Regina gave his arm a squeeze. She didn’t know what else to do.

“Henry will be fine. I haven’t figured out why Rumple is helping him ‘for free’ yet, but I know him. This is a puzzle he can’t resist solving.” Regina eased herself back into her chair, her lips pressed into a thin white line. It did not look like she was comfortable in the slightest.

“You don’t look well.”

“Flatterer.” Regina managed a tight smirk.

“Regina…”

“Daniel and I fought.” Regina opened her eyes, her head tilted back, and studied the wind chimes hanging from the ceiling. “About me coming here, to Rumple, for help.”

“Can’t say I expected it of you myself.” David started carefully. He was beginning to know her. Regina’s tone may be light, but she was at war with herself. Again.

“Rumple’s the only one who knows more magic than I do.” She looked at him sharply. “Don’t quote me.”

“Not a word.” David smirked, glad to see her steel showing again.

“I couldn’t bring Daniel, I…”

“Hyde?” David rocked down to sit on the floor with one leg bent at the knee and his elbow canted on it. Watching her.

“Amongst other things.” She murmured.

David watched her for long moments, the sounds of Rumple’s enthusiastic tea brewing echoing from the back of the store room. Regina went back to her observation of the ceiling decorations.

Couldn’t trust wind chimes, she thought, they could be vicious if wounded.

“You thought Rumple’s price would be higher than Daniel would want you paying.” He decided after a moment.

“No one is more surprised than I that he would help Henry out of the –heh- ‘goodness’ of his heart…I can’t see the angle.”

“Maybe there isn’t one.”

Regina snorted.

“No, think about it, we’re all useful to Gold in some way. Not many of us know why or how, but we are. I think, in his own twisted way, that he’s trying to thank you for…doing what he wanted.”

“Casting the curse, lobotomising thousands, tearing families apart and generally making Hitler look like a member of the Pink Knitting Conglomerate by comparison?” Regina arched a brow at him and David managed a wry smirk.

“I can’t say I understand it, sometimes I think a dog would have a better chance of writing a symposium than I would understanding you, but you two are thick as thieves and _weird_ with it.”

Regina tilted her head.

“Look at where you are, in the home of one of your oldest enemies and simultaneously your maestro. You are the kidnapper and jailor of his love and his beloved apprentice both.” David shrugged. “Sometimes you’re enemies and sometimes friends and always both.”

Regina finally seemed to relax into the chair, carefully sitting back, and mulled that over.

“I keep having to be different people.” Regina murmured. “One for Gold and my enemies…one for Daniel and my family.”

She was silent a long moment and the last confession came from her so quietly that he couldn’t be sure he heard it.

“Sooner or later…one of them is going to have to destroy the other.”

David reached out and rested his hand on her knee, waiting for her to look at him and then meeting her gaze with an intensity that he could see surprised her.

“And I call bullshit on that.” David gave her knee a squeeze. “Everyone – _everyone­_ \- in this town is in two halves. I’m David Nolan and Prince Charming at the same time. Granny is the Widow Lucas –retired werewolf- and the owner of a small town diner. Ruby is a warrior wolf, the fiercest lieutenant in the Charming Army and a sweet waitress. We all have our bloody side, Regina. Yours is just…better aired than most.”

Regina smiled and rolled her eyes. Apparently dismissing it, but he knew he’d managed to get through to her. Even if it was just a tiny kernel of an idea that he had planted.    

“Tea.” Rumple deliberately announced his presence before he arrived at their side.

Both Regina and David would assume that he had heard everything but the appearance that he hadn’t was all in the name of good manners.

Just because they spent most of their time trying to outmanoeuvre each other and kill their opponent didn’t mean that they had to be rude whilst doing it.

David was right, they were bizarre.

Regina reached out and dragged a small table in front of the chair on which she sat, Rumple set the tea set down and settled himself on the bench of his spinning wheel, though facing his guests. Regina sat forward, her hands moving with practiced movements and started pouring the tea.

It had the air of an old ritual. One practiced between master and student for decades until it happened despite the chasms that now separated them.

The tea set was an old one. Simple earthenware, a flattened teapot, little bowl shaped cups with no handles on them a carafe of milk and a pot of honey in lieu of sugar.

Regina lifted the lid of the pot off the tray and rolled it over the rim of the teapot with a grating sound that was oddly soothing. She set the lid in place and the tea spilled over with displacement. Neither Regina nor Rumple reacted to this and David watched it all with the intensity and careful stillness of a wildlife photographer that has suddenly found himself between a leopard and a bull elephant. Both of them stunningly powerful creatures content to be in each other’s presence so long as their purposes never crossed.

Should that become the case…well, David didn’t want to stick around and take photographs, put it that way.

“You’ve kept it well.” Regina murmured.

“No need to let it depreciate in value.” Gold rested both hands atop his cane and watched his former student.

She smirked and made his tea with those deceptively delicate hands of hers. To look at her, one would never know that she was perfectly capable –and often willing- to kill him with that very same cup.

He accepted his cup with a polite thank you and watched her while she made David’s and finally her own.

“Feeling better?” Rumple sipped from his tea, carefully regarding Regina whilst she sat forward, her elbows on her knees, her cup enclosed in both hands, her face tipped into the sweet smelling steam rising from the brew.

“Much.” Regina opened her eyes and drank of her tea.

David looked between them, not much one for tea himself, and tried not to feel like a child that had been allowed to stay up with the grownups but only if he was on his extra special best behaviour.

“Alright,” he spoke when it appeared they were just going to watch one another all night, “the tension is killing me. What do you want for helping Henry?”

Both Regina and Gold looked at him like he had just made a grievous faux pas.

“Hey, some of us are still aging, so if I could find out the answer before I reach my dotage, it’d be much appreciated.”

Regina frowned at him the exact same way she did at Henry whenever the boy was being exasperating.

“As I told Regina,” Gold enunciated carefully, “it’s on the house.”

“Why?” David set his cup aside and changed his mind when both sorcerers looked down at it as if it was an alien thing now that it was out of his hand. Jesus, was it like the talking conch? Could he only speak if he was part of the tea party?

“My reasons are my own.”

“Not where Henry is concerned.” Regina’s tone was deceptively mild, as distracted as she appeared to be by picking a tealeaf off the rim of her cup, but she waited with careful tension on Rumple’s answer.

“Fair enough.” Rumple tilted his head. “The boy was in pain. I saw no reason to let it continue, so I did something about it.”

Regina watched him for long moments timed by the ticking of the many clocks in the room. They were all just slightly out of synch.

“Alright.” Regina spoke after a moment. “What have I done to deserve such generosity?”

“Absolutely nothing. You’re one of the many banes of my existence.” Rumple answered blithely and she smirked her dangerous smile.

“The faeries.” Her mouth twisted and she poured herself more tea. “Figures. Why stop them yourself when you know I’d be obliged to clean up that mess myself before it got too wildly out of hand?” Her voice became a little harder. “Especially considering yours and Blue’s special little arrangement.”

Rumple smirked and sipped his tea.

“The queen has ever been able to move further and faster on the board than the king.” He shrugged a shoulder.

“Well, I suppose queen is at least a step up from pawn.” Regina’s tone had a fair bite to it but she poured him tea when Gold held out his cup.

Seriously though, fucking bizarre.

“You’ve never been a mere pawn, dearie. Charming, maybe, but not you.”

“Thanks.” David rolled his eyes.

“Flatterer.” Regina smiled and scrunched her nose at Rumple in false pleasure at the compliment.

“I try. Not just a dapper exterior you know.” Rumple waved at his suit and Regina snorted.

“I preferred the scales.”

Rumple arched a brow and she bared her teeth in a wicked grin.

“You were always so _miserable_ when you shed.”

David’s head snapped up and he looked wildly at Rumple.

“I did _not_ shed.” The Dark One growled and Regina idly stirred more cream into her tea.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” She disagreed in a mild tone, speaking to David. “Hanks and chunks of sparkly nonsense left in his wake for weeks at a time.”

“Liar.” Rumple admonished her as he would a child.

“The worst thing was when I had to scrub it off his back. Not a pleasant chore but putting up with his drama if it wasn’t cleaned away was worse.”

“People will never believe you’re trying for redemption if you keep fibbing so outrageously.” Rumple shook his head sadly and they looked at each other for a long moment.

Then –when they both smiled- it was very nearly friendly.

“You two make my head hurt.” David muttered into his tea. It was apple and cinnamon tea.

Of course it was.

“Which is an improvement on your usual blissful ignorance.” Regina sipped her tea.

Rumple chuckled and David glared at him.

The bell jangled from the front door and Regina’s eyes flashed to Rumple’s. He shook his head in answer to her silent question and they both rose to their feet with the slow uncoiling of predators.

They turned to face the bead curtain that led to the front of the shop, Rumple stood braced on his cane though his hold had shifted on it to something more like that of a sword…or a wand.

Regina stood side on, the hand blocked from the door by her body flickering to flame with purple sparks of building magic.

“Rumple?”

Belle swept aside the curtain and a low rush of air went through everyone when they realised there was no threat.

“Belle,” Rumple seethed out a harassed breath, “what are you doing here?”

“I came to help.” The young woman glanced at Regina and mustered a smile from somewhere. It was strained and nervous but she managed it.

Regina tilted her head and the magic seeped beneath her skin again. She frowned a little.

“Why?”

“I…” Belle faltered when subjected to the full weight of Regina’s attention and was more than a little relieved when her companion arrived. A far more experienced Regina wrangler.

“It’s probably because she’s one of those good people we’ve all heard so much about.” Rachel rounded Belle and stood between her and Regina, warning the older woman to back off. “Belle called, she told me that Henry was ill.”

“Oh.” Regina frowned, caught wrong footed for a moment. She looked over at Rumple –who looked only slightly less confused than she was- and he shrugged.

David elbowed her.

“Hey!” Regina shoved him back and he jerked his head over at Belle.

Regina followed his gaze and realised that Belle was absolutely terrified. She was trying to hide it, biting her lip and wringing her hands together, but she was horrified at having to share space with Regina.

“Rachel,” Regina ignored Belle for a moment, which she thought was the kindest thing she could do for her, “will you take a look at Henry’s arm? Rumple healed it –and I know him to be more than proficient in such things- but I’d like a second opinion.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Rachel gave a tired smile and hefted her medical case, moving over to the cot that David stood over. She smiled at the prince, snapped on a pair of gloves and began her examination of the boy’s arm.

Regina turned back to Belle and then looked over at Rumple.

He studied her for a long, _hard_ , moment and finally nodded.

“Belle, would you walk with me?”

“Me?!” Belle all but squeaked and looked wildly at Rumple.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” He hurried to assure her. He knew exactly what had happened the last time she had fallen in step with the Evil Queen.

“I wish only to talk.” Regina clasped her hands in front of herself because –where she was concerned- raising them was a lot more threatening.

“About what?”

“You.”

Belle frowned, thrown by that and finally nodded.

“Alright. Just for a little while.”

“We won’t go far.” Regina told Rumple and then moved past Belle, leading the younger woman from the shop.

Regina swung open the front door with one last jangle of the bell and stepped out into the street. She inhaled a deep breath and smiled.

The air was chill but it carried with it the scent of the pines rising up around the town, the moon was a thin sliver high overhead but it always seemed to cast so much light in Storybrooke. The streetlamps were yellow blooms in the grey light and the streets were silent. It was a little after four, the darkest part of the night.

Belle closed the door behind them both and stood uncertainly.

“Where do you want to go?”

“You decide.” Regina waited until Belle picked a direction and fell in step with her.

They walked in silence, the only sound their shoes clipping against the street and Regina waited.

“Rachel likes you.”

Regina looked up at Belle’s words and she smiled.

“I like her.”

“Oh.” Belle lapsed into silence for a few moments more. “She’s very clever.”

“I imagine that it is something you have in common.” Regina slipped her hands into her pockets.

“What do you want?” Belle halted in the middle of the street and it took Regina a few steps to realise she wasn’t there anymore. She turned back to look at the girl.

“Why must I want anything?”

“Because you’re the Evil Queen.” Belle stammered but kept her chin up. “You’re not nice unless you need something.”

Regina smirked and looked out over the street.

“You’re wrong.” She spoke quietly. “The Evil Queen isn’t nice at all. She can pretend, wear that mask, but it isn’t real.”

“You speak as if she’s someone else.”

“It’s recently been pointed out that every single person in this town is two people. Am I to be the only one excluded from that?” Regina shrugged as if the answer didn’t matter to her. “That aside, I’m not very good at being nice either. Not much practice, you see. Do tell me if I do something wrong.”

Belle stared at her, her mouth actually hanging open a little in confusion and Regina laughed.

“Well,” Belle clipped her teeth together, “that wasn’t very nice.”

“My apologies.” Regina smirked and it slowly disappeared. “Sincerely. I apologise. I am sorry for having wronged you. I suppose that it means very little to say it but…”

“No.” Belle spoke suddenly. “It means…it means a lot that you know to say it.”

Regina smiled and Belle blurted the next before she could stop herself.

“But you do want something.”

“Ah, caught.” Regina twisted her mouth in a rueful smile. “I admit I did not think you would accept my apology so gracefully. I expected an argument, a fight…I could use the distraction.”

“Because of Henry or Hyde?”

Regina lifted her head, surprised at such a bold question and frowned.

“Both, I suppose.”

“Well, you needn’t worry for Henry, Rumple said he was going to do his best to help him. He is just a little boy.” Belle smiled, trying to be reassuring and Regina was more than a little bemused. “As for Hyde…maybe I can help.”

“In what way?” Regina’s curiosity won out over her disbelief that such a bookworm could help against a monster of such terrifying power.

“Well, I’m the librarian. I’ve read the story of Jekyll and Hyde and Rachel said…well, when I called she thought it was because of Hyde and Daniel.”

Regina tried not to bristle at the mention of the monster in connection to her love and Belle hurried on.

“I mean, I’ve read both their stories and –cross referencing with Henry’s book- I think I’ve figured out the allegories enough to make educated guesses.”

Now Regina really was confused.

“Guesses at what?”

“Well, you want to bind Hyde inside of Daniel but you don’t want to hurt one as it will bleed into the other, correct?”

“Ye-es…” Regina folded her arms over her chest and followed the girl when she began walking again. Excitement overtaking reticence.

“Now, it would have to be something incredibly powerful to bind a creature of Hyde’s power, but it would have to be completely benign too. As anything made by…” Belle faltered and bit her lip.

“Yes, yes, anything made by Rumple or myself would resonate with Hyde, making him stronger rather than weaker.” Regina waved it away. “Go on.”

“Well, Blue’s magic –being very goody-goody- might very well be worse. It might poison Hyde and sicken Daniel because of it, right?”

“Your theory is sound.” Regina was quietly amazed at that. Belle really wasn’t just a pretty face. She had a hell of a mind ticking on behind there.

“So what about something neutral?”

“What about it?” Regina shook her head. “You don’t get to the heavyweights by being _neutral_. The power has to have an opposite, something to pull against, to react with. Neutral power is just waiting to be swung either way.”

“Exactly!” Belle looked pleased. “Don’t you see? If you bound Hyde with something _neutral_ it will equalise the energies in Daniel’s body. Keeping him in a constant state of equilibrium wherein Daniel’s energies are dominant and Hyde’s darkness never reaches the saturation point required for him to physically manifest.”

Regina blinked, a frown on her brow, she watched her feet traversing the road. She held up a hand when Belle opened her mouth to say more. She was still processing the first lot of information. She turned it over and over in her head, looking at it from every angle, shaking it to see if it rattled.

“I assume you have a suggestion as to what would be a neutral power.”

“Rapunzel.”

“I am _not_ feeding Rachel to Hyde! He would literally eat her alive!” Not to mention that if Regina couldn’t have him no one could.

“What?” Belle looked confused and then shook it off. “No. Her _hair_. We use her hair to bind Hyde inside Daniel’s body.”

“You’ve lost me.” Regina frowned again and took the opportunity to sit and brood over it when they came across a bench by the park.

“Think on it,” Belle sat by Regina, too giddy with excitement to be scared anymore, “Rachel uses her hair for healing –which is essentially uncontrolled cellular growth. Commonly known in this world as cancer.”

“Rachel doesn’t give people cancer.” Regina’s voice was sharp in a low warning. She would not hear a bad word against the doctor.

“No, silly, I’m saying that Rachel’s hair is used for good but it could just as easily be used for evil.”

“All magic is that.” Regina was quietly amused at having just been referred to as ‘silly’.

“But Rachel is the only one who uses it on both friend and foe.”

Regina sat back so suddenly she thumped against the bench. Her eyes were wide, staring at nothing as the mushroom cloud of such knowledge went off in her head.

“That…that could _work._ ”

“Really?” Belle grinned and couldn’t hide her flinch when Regina suddenly hurled herself from the bench and stood on the sidewalk, looking like she wanted to run in all directions at once. She settled for rounding on Belle quickly enough to make her flinch again.

“Sorry.” Regina said somewhat absently, her mind working furiously and very little attention being paid to the physical world. “Say it again.”

“Which part?”

“The last bit.”

“That it’s not her hair but Rachel that’s neutral?”

“That’s it!” Regina snapped her fingers with a crack like a firecracker going off and something glowing and white appeared in her hand. Chalk. Regina spun away from Belle and began to write. Right there, on the air itself, she began to calculate.

Glowing symbols, equations and letters from languages long dead spewed from Regina’s brain into the air around her. She wrote furiously, murmuring to herself occasionally and she was barely aware of Belle cautiously rising out of her seat to approach. Her mouth dropped open when she caught a glimpse of Regina’s thought processes.

“That’s…that’s astrophysics!”

Regina jumped, startled and followed the line of Belle’s finger to a clumped string of cuneiform and astrological signs.

“Ye-es, and this is quantum mechanics.”

“I’ve seen this –or something like it- in a book about wormhole theory! What does this have to do with magic never mind biology?” Belle looked askance at Regina and the brunette frowned.

“You love magic. Has Rumple taught you _nothing?_ ”

“He won’t teach me magic. Won’t even let me read his books on it.” Belle was frowning at some of the equations.

 She recognised them, in the same way that she might recognise some of the faces in town. That didn’t mean she knew those people though. Belle was clever, she knew she was, but _this_ …this was a whole other league.

“Well, I wouldn’t hold that against him. Most of those books are horrendous liars and quite prone to biting.” Regina shrugged it away. “As for astrophysics and quantum mechanics, they are fitting analogies when it comes to energies in a body. There is an entire universe inside each and every one of us, Belle. That is why the human form is capable of holding so much magical power. Power of a polarity dictated by our personalities and –as you so beautifully put it- Rachel’s is truly neutral…or as close as any living person can get to it.”

“You’re a genius.” Belle breathed.

“It was your idea.”

“No, I mean, I’m clever but _this…_ ” Belle waved her hand up and around them and Regina noticed the extent of her scribblings only then.

She had shunted her equations higher in order to make more space and had been prowling back and forth –some equations being several metres long- to span her imaginary blackboard. A board that curved around both women and the bench and stretched ten feet into the air.

“I can’t even begin to fathom the way you see the world.” Belle was quiet a moment more. “It must be terrifying.”

Regina tilted her head at that and was sorry that she hadn’t visited Belle more often. Had she known she was so intelligent, she might well have let her loose as another one of her pets. Regina’s nose wrinkled. Probably better that she hadn’t known then.

“It is. To begin with.” Regina allowed. “You get used to it. It’s a lot easier to deal with when you realise that knowing all this,” Regina waved to the wall of equations, “gives you the power to keep it at bay.”

“Seems a very lonely thing.”

Regina smirked.

“Which is why you’ve never heard of a sorceress and a sorcerer being happily married. All that brain power in one room begins to smell like burning batteries.”

Belle laughed despite herself and Regina smiled. Sobering after a moment.

“It does us good to have something –someone- simple in our lives. Someone who can see the world in a way that isn’t so…hard.” Regina shrugged. “At least, that’s what I think.”

“Is that why the Evil Queen and the Dark One never…?” Belle looked suddenly horrified. “Oh my god, I’m sorry, no…!”

Regina laughed.

“No need to apologise. It is natural you would be curious. I imagine many people would think that we would be suited to one another…but no. Not now. Not ever.” Regina put that fear to rest.

“Oh.” Belle’s voice was small.

“Even if we had, you’d have nothing to fear, Rumple and I do not love one another. He loves you.” Regina succumbed to the bizarre urge to comfort the girl.

“I know, it’s just…”

“A weight off your mind?” Regina smirked.

“Yeah.”

“I understand.”

“Really?” Belle frowned up at her. “Sorry, I just can’t imagine you…feeling inferior.”

Regina chuckled to herself and shoved the chalk into her pocket. It dusted white magic over her black pants and the writing arching up around them faded away.

“Well, after the whole ‘taking over the known world’ thing, it’s a little difficult to take any one person seriously as a threat.” Regina hunched her shoulders, not telling Belle the real reason.

That was the thing about being a fantastic actor; nobody ever thought you were acting.

“You’re not as horrible as everyone thinks you are.” Belle blurted and then looked horrified again.

Regina surprised even herself by laughing again.

“You really are exactly as you appear, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Belle looked down at the ground and studied her shoes for a moment. “Not much of a challenge, am I?”

“What?” Regina chuckled. “In a room of liars, the truthful man –or woman- is king.”

Belle lifted her head and frowned at Regina.

“You must drive him _mad._ ” Regina looked pleased and moved onto explain when Belle’s confusion didn’t seem to lessen.

“Rumple and I are liars. Olympic level ninja liars. Honesty is as foreign to us as falsehood is to you.” Regina grinned. “People like us tell people like you what you want to hear in order to get what we want. Think on when we first met. I told you what you wanted to hear to get what I wanted. Which was Rumple weakened.”

“You think I am?” Belle looked suddenly fierce.” Because I won’t let you use me again.”

“I have no need of you to make Rumple suffer and –as it stands- he and I are happy to ignore one another. No, I think you are a fascination to him. A distraction, not a weakness.”

“Couldn’t a distraction just as easily be a weakness?” Belle was trying to keep up with Regina but they were both just barely speaking the same language it seemed.

“Belle, you just caught a glimpse of how we see the world,” Regina waved at where the writing had been, “we need distractions just to function. Besides, I think it’s high time Rumple got a taste of his own medicine. It’ll be good for him to have someone he can’t manipulate.”

“Is that what Daniel is to you?” Belle asked cautiously and she watched with her heart in her mouth when the queen sucked in a deep breath to control herself and let it out slowly.

“No.” Regina smiled a tight smile. “Daniel is an obsession.”

Belle considered that a long moment.

“Forgive me but…that doesn’t seem healthy.”

“No.” Regina tilted her head, smiling wryly, “but I’ve been ill my entire life.”

Belle blinked and Regina’s smile was more amused this time.

“See what I mean about honesty?”

“Yes.” Belle rubbed at her arms and Regina’s eyes tracked the motion in the same way a lion would notice a limp.

“You’re cold. We can go back.”

“Have I been distraction enough to you as well?”

Regina chuckled.

“I meant no offence. You are what Rumple needs…arguably. I myself think he needs a kick in the head but I’m not supposed to do that kind of thing anymore.” Regina shrugged it away and turned to lead Belle back to the shop.

“Speaking of distractions, I have a new one for you.”

Regina glanced at the younger woman who was smiling again. She really was ridiculously excitable.

“Truly?”

Belle nodded, biting her lip to keep herself from blurting it out.

“Do tell.”

“How are you going to bind Hyde with Rapunzel’s hair?”

“She prefers Rachel and –when I explain what I need it for- I’m sure she’ll be willing to donate a strand or three.”

“So you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“About the caveat with Rap-er-Rachel’s hair.”

“Apparently not.” Regina’s tone made it clear that she should only temporarily be in such a state.

“Well, Rachel’s hair is incredibly powerful but it only works if it’s still attached to her head.”

Regina slowed her pace and frowned.

“You mean…?”

“If Rachel’s hair is cut, it loses its power. It turns dark and it doesn’t grow again.”

Regina stopped walking and tilted her head. She huffed out a breath and lifted her hands, letting them slap down against her thighs.

“Well, isn’t that just fucking typical.”

Belle blinked at such language from the queen. She hadn’t seemed the type.

“I’m sure there’s a way around it.”

“Oh, most likely.” Regina scowled. “I would just –for once- like to have something easy.”

“If it were easy, you’d be bored.” Belle was one of those annoying optimists.

  Regina made a note never to let her spend too much time with David. All those positive thoughts were likely to do something unhealthy to her.

“Right now, a little boredom wouldn’t go amiss.” Regina grumbled and pushed open the door to the shop. She sent a flicker of magic out to show it was them, she’d rather she didn’t get whammied by Rumple’s cane.

Regina strode through the front room of the shop and swished through the bead curtain into the stockroom in the back.

“Henry!” Regina grinned and hurried across the room to her son and dropped down onto the cot beside him. She smoothed back his hair and cupped his face in her hands. “Sweetheart, how are you feeling?”

“Not…great.” Henry answered after a moment and it was then that Regina noticed the pall of tension sitting heavy in the room.

Looking up and around, Regina saw the worried look on Charming’s face, the confusion on Rachel’s and the furious concern on Rumple’s.

“What? What is it?” Regina instinctively moved to shield Henry from whatever it was that had everyone so spooked. Regina tried a wary smile. “Who died?”

“It’s rather who hasn’t died, dearie.” Rumple looked down at his cane and stopped himself from grinding it into the floor.

“Okay.” Regina was beginning to get truly worried. What the hell could spook Rumple? “Who’s not dead then?”

Rumple looked up at her and then she knew. She knew even before he spoke but he went and said it anyway and made it real.

“Cora.”   


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-DAH!
> 
> Here we are with some more action for y'all. 
> 
> Enjoy. Review. Et cetera. Yada. Et al.
> 
> KISSES!

**Chapter 29 – Never Again**

 

Regina stood at the window in Gold’s shop and drank more tea.

She’d drunk so much damn tea that she thought her back teeth might start floating any second now but Rumple hadn’t ceased in his quest to pour more and more of it down her neck.

He was waiting for her to blow up. They all were. As it was, Regina was waiting for her to blow up too but all she felt was…numb.

Her mother was still alive.

What the hell was she supposed to do with that?

She had been torn into pieces when she’d ordered her mother’s execution, part of her relieved, part of her gleeful, another part wracked with guilt and another steeped in horror. She had killed her own mother. By a proxy, yes, but she had lain the spell on the hook and dispatched the pirate of the same name to do the deed.

Regina drank more tea.

Regina watched the sun cross the sky and tried to feel _something_ about the announcement of Cora’s imminent arrival.

It frightened her, feeling nothing, not when she had spent the entirety of her life feeling everything to its absolute extreme. Was this a defence mechanism? Was her mind trying to pad her against the danger of her own emotions?

A bit late in the game to be learning that trick, she thought.

She should be scared, she should be angry and horrified and terrified. She should be panicking. She should be clawing to stop Cora before she could get here. She should be figuring out a way to get Snow and Emma back and hopefully murder Cora once and for all while she was still a world away but…but she wasn’t.

She was drinking tea.

“Hey.”

Regina twisted violently at the sound of another person in the room and relaxed marginally when she saw Rachel standing hesitantly in the doorway leading to the back of the store.

“Hello.” Regina studied the younger woman. “Is everything alright?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Rachel let the bead curtain swing closed with a rattle. “I don’t know who your mom is but –if she’s anything like mine- we should probably be worried.”

Regina chuckled, looking down into her tea.

“No, my mother is nothing like yours.” Regina looked up at Rachel again, the smile draining from her face. “Cora is cold and cruel and…a monster.”

Rachel frowned and Regina shrugged.

“I had to learn it from someone, didn’t I?”

“You seem…to be taking it really well.” Rachel cautiously approached. “Judging by the way David and Mister Gold are acting…I was kind of prepared to duck and cover.”

“Don’t rule it out yet. My mother outsmarted the Dark One, we had best all be on our guard.”

“Is she…magical? Like you and Gold?”

“Yes, she’s very powerful. Her real strength lies in manipulation though.” Regina didn’t seem to notice her shiver at whatever memories washed over her. “She knows exactly where all the weak points are and she presses with something sharp until her hand is soaked red…she is very, very, good at it.”

“You’re scared.” Rachel joined Regina at the shop front but took the opposite window so as to not be too close.

“I suppose I must be.” Regina swirled her tea and began to hate the damn cup. She wondered if breaking it might finally make her feel something.

“You’re really not worried?” Rachel sounded worried.

“I should be, shouldn’t I?” Regina’s gaze turned inward as she thought it over. She slowly shook her head. “I’m not. I feel…cold. Quiet. Distant.”

Rachel was quiet a long moment, studying her hands, she finally looked up.

“Did you feel like this before? When you were…her?”

Regina blinked and jerked as if slapped.

“No.” She frowned and then shook her head vehemently. “Before, I felt _everything_. All the time. Without surcease. This is different.”

“It could just be a delayed reaction.” Rachel toyed with the seal of the glass pane of the window. “Everything’s been better for you, it’s got to be a shock.”

“Shock is one word for it.” Regina smirked.

Rachel was quiet for a long time again and then finally lifted her head.

“Do you need me to do anything? Can I do anything?”

Regina shook her head and then froze.

“What is it?”

“Would you…would you help me with something?” Regina asked hesitantly.

“You’re actually asking for help?” The question blurted from Rachel before she realised it might change Regina’s mind. “I mean, of course, if I can I will.”

“It’s about Daniel. Hyde too.”

“Name it.”

“The cost may be steep. I don’t know if it will work. It may even harm you.” Regina looked out the window, frowning.

“You wouldn’t ask unless you needed to.” Rachel shrugged. “I don’t think you’d put me in danger needlessly. In fact, you get pretty pissy when you seem to think I’m putting myself in danger. So, out with it.”

“Belle has a theory.” Regina started and smirked at Rachel’s expression. “Yes, we did actually converse during out walk. It turns out that being a librarian full of fiction books for this world actually gives her a wealth of knowledge when it comes to ours.”

Rachel nodded, that made sense.

“It’s about you and your hair.” Regina set her teacup aside and folded her arms over her chest. “You’re neutral.”

Rachel frowned, cocking a hip against the window sill and waiting for all to be made clear.

“I mean, of everyone in this town, you tend to friend and foe both. You don’t care who anyone is, you just want to help. Which is…unheard of and a little bizarre.”

“When I take an oath, I mean it. I might only have taken the Hippocratic Oath in my head, but it still counts.”

“Exactly, you are _fair_. Not just your hair,” Regina continued on a smirk when Rachel gave her a look, “I mean that you try and balance the world you live in. the rest of us are one side or the other but _you_ walk the middle road.”

“I guess I have a somewhat unique perspective when it comes to good and evil.” Rachel allowed. She mulled it over. “Wait, are you going to use me as a neutralising agent? To stop Hyde’s…evility overcoming Daniel’s…not.”

“In a nutshell.” Regina shrugged.

“How?”

“Well…your hair.”

“I’m kind of attached.” Rachel shrugged. “You can’t cut it without it dying and losing its magic. Believe me, been there and done that.”

“When someone else cuts it, yes. Have you ever cut it yourself?”

Rachel opened her mouth to shoot that idea down and stalled. No, no she hadn’t.

“A lot of magic has to do with choice and will. You have to choose to do a certain spell and you have to _want_ it. I think, if you did it, your hair might react very differently than if someone else was to try and shear it off.”

Rachel’s eyes widened.

“Regina, do you realise what you’re saying? I could be a cure! Not just on a day to day basis, wrapping people up and singing them a lullaby, but I could harvest the hair and distil it, find out what makes it work and…!” Rachel threw up her hands, her mind tumbling with the possibilities and stopped only when Regina’s hands landed on her shoulders.

“Steady, dear, we haven’t even gotten to the scissors yet.” Regina smiled and looked the young woman in the eye. “Would you be willing to try? To use Daniel as patient zero?”

Rachel opened her mouth to agree immediately but saw Regina’s serious look and gave herself time to mull it over. So think she did and, slowly, she nodded.

“Yeah. I think, between the two of us, something could be done…if you help me with the other thing.”

“Of course.” Regina smiled and straightened away from Rachel. She huffed out a breath, she hadn’t expected the girl to agree.

“So…now?”

“I think the sooner the better.” Regina nodded. “Daniel is going to find out sooner or later about Cora and –when he does- he’s likely to become…unstable.”

“True that.” Rachel muttered and looked about the shop. “Is here good or is there some sort of rule about not playing in someone else’s house?”

“There is,” Regina looked about the front of the shop and then shrugged, “but Rumple and I have never really been the type for rules.”

“Really?” Rachel shook her head. “I’d have never have guessed.”

Regina arched a brow, but there was a hint of a smirk about her mouth.

“Come on, there’s bound to be scissors around here somewhere.” Regina found a chair and put it in the middle of the room and then took to perusing the glass cabinets. Rachel joined her but at the opposite side of the shop.

“Hey, what about this?”

Regina turned and actually squeaked in alarm when she saw what Rachel was holding.

“Put that _gently_ down.”

Rachel went still at Regina’s hoarse tone and, very carefully, set the blade back onto the glass counter top. Regina hurried over, gripped Rachel by the shoulders and forcibly walked her over to the chair in the middle of the room. She then went back to the blade and, using magic to pick it up, conjured a locked safe deposit box around it and then disappeared the entire lot.

“That idiot imp.” Regina snarled on a seething sigh.

“What was it?”

“ _That_ ,” Regina went back to perusing the cabinets and warned Rachel to stay exactly where she was with The Look, “was the Vorpal Blade. Had you held it any closer to your neck, your head would have fallen off.”

Rachel chuckled and then stopped when Regina’s face remained tight with the near miss.

“Seriously? Gold had that just lying around? Kids come in here.”  

“A child would have never noticed it. He enchanted it so.” Regina shook her head. “My dear imp may be a monster without peer, but even he draws the line at needlessly endangering children.”

“Needlessly?” Rachel frowned. “You mean that you two have found needs for endangering children?”

Regina looked up at Rachel and her jaw clenched.

“You know what kind of person I am.” Her voice was quiet.

“No. I don’t.” Rachel sighed. “I know what kind of person you _were_ though. You’re different here. Now. You have something to lose now…which may actually make you more dangerous but it does give you an empathy I don’t think you’ve had in a long time.”

Regina smiled and shook her head.

“You are a constant source of amazement to me, Rachel Towers.”

“Thank you.”

Regina smiled and then her brows rose.

“Ah-hah!” Regina unlocked the glass cabinet and pulled out a pair of battered bronze scissors with more notches in the blades than a saw. “Perfect.”

“You think?”

“Oh, yes.” Regina sourced a jewelled comb as well. Decidedly ordinary, in the collection for no other reason than its precious stones, but the scissors were powerfully magical. “These are the same shears that Delilah used to cut Samson’s hair. It would seem that the fates are on our side.”

Rachel arched a brow, her little scientific brain rebelling at the thought of her life being dictated by anything or anyone.

“Don’t look like that, live long enough and commit enough atrocities and you learn that there is no such thing as coincidence. Especially around Rumplestiltskin.” Regina joined Rachel in the centre of the shop floor and knelt behind her chair on the floor. She began to undo the ties that bound her intricately plaited hair and finger combed the heavy golden mass out into glossy cascading waves.

“It really is beautiful.” Regina murmured. “The magic sings wonderfully.”

“Sings?”  Rachel’s hair was long enough that it could coil spooled on Regina’s lap but she could still twist to look down at the sorceress. “I sing, my hair doesn’t.”

“You’d hear it if you but listened.” Regina admonished her lightly and set to gently combing Rachel’s hair out from the crown of her head down to the ends some eight feet away. It was now fully golden and still growing fast.

“I think the same song on loop might drive me crazier than you are.” Rachel tensed when she realised what she had just said and Regina laughed.

“Such a wicked tongue.” Regina resumed her combing.

 It was a very soothing task. She could easily see why Gothel had liked it. Not that Regina needed the hair’s power to stay young –her own magic took care of that- but it was a pleasingly mindless task to lose herself in.

“I still remember my residency. Woman in a man’s world. Back in the seventies –when my cursed memories said I was earning my white coat in New York, not many women were doctors. You get to have a pretty sharp tongue in that kind of crowd.”

“Preaching to the choir, dear. Try being a queen surrounded by kingdoms. I swear, there wasn’t a month went by where I wasn’t offered a dowry that would make even you bald with shock if I would only hand over the keys to my castle –as it were.” Regina continued to brush Rachel’s hair.

“Did you like it?”

Regina’s hands slowed in their combing as she considered.

“Which part?”

“Ruling, I suppose. Being in charge. Being your own master.”

Regina laughed.

“It was an illusion, dear. I have ever been the Queen of Nothing. I murdered my way to the top, took what I believed was payment for my…services and then ruled with an iron and sharpened fist.”

“Your country prospered.” Rachel thought aloud. “It was decidedly not poor, your trade in horses alone was…amazing. There were no serfs, no plagues, no pestilence, your people had a good way of life.”

“And a madwoman for a queen, dear.” Regina sat up on her knees so she could reach Rachel’s temple. She began to comb a section of hair away from the rest. “You shouldn’t be so quick to whitewash me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to only see the dark. I know it’s easier to whip yourself but –someday- you’re going to have to move on.”

Regina did go still then, a hank of hair completely separated from the others in her hands and it throbbed once in response to the pain that shocked through her. She looked down at it, smiling softly and wishing it was so easily fixed. She lowered herself to sit on her heels again and looked away when she felt Rachel turn to face her again. Watching her.

“I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“Sadness is something more familiar to me than the opposite.” Regina smiled somewhat wistfully. “I don’t much know what to do with happiness.”

“You could try enjoying it.” Rachel shrugged. “Give it a whirl, you never know, you may just like it.”

Regina smirked and then shook herself from her reverie. She had things to do and things to do were better than horrors to think about.

“Hold your hands like this.” Regina held her hands shoulder width apart, fingers straight and palms facing one another as if prepared to clap. She began to wind Rachel’s hair around them as one might a skein of wool…exactly as one might. “Now, I haven’t done this in decades and certainly not with hair that was still attached to something living so this should be…interesting.”

“Another lesson learned at the spinning wheel of a certain imp?”

“One of the first he taught me. There was a reason my kingdom was so prosperous. It’s easy to outbid someone if you can spin gold from normal wool.” Regina bobbed her brows at Rachel and the doctor laughed.

Regina stood reaching to the roots of the handful of hair she had sectioned off. She laid her other hand on top of Rachel’s head and Rachel could feel the simmer of magic that always lay just under Regina’s skin froth to a boil.

“You will tell me if this hurts.”

“I can handle…”

“Rapunzel.”

Rachel actually flinched at that word coming from Regina in that tone and old habit took over.

“Yes, Regina.”

“Good, now…brace yourself I suppose.”

Rachel sat still and tense as Regina’s magic gloved hand wrapped around her hair at the root and _pulled._

“Eurgh.” Rachel made a sound of surprise at the odd, stretching, tugging sensation that tingled over her entire scalp.

“Does it hurt?” Regina stopped immediately and Rachel hurried to reassure her.

“No. Honestly, it doesn’t.” Rachel tried to describe it. “It just feels incredibly strange. That’s all.”

“Okay.” Regina began to pull again, hesitantly at first and then –as her confidence in the magic grew- with a steadier and more practiced hand.

It wasn’t exactly like the spinning wheel, but it was similar enough for her to quickly fall into an easy rhythm. She pulled with one hand, keeping a gentle tugging pressure, and looped the hair around Rachel’s hands with the other.

Long minutes passed while Regina carefully worked her magic and she nodded to herself, releasing a slow breath once she deemed the extra length enough.

“Alright,” Regina moved to kneel in front of Rachel this time, “now the hard part. I’m going to take the hair from you and then you need to cut it. Focus on this being your choice. _You_ want to cut your hair. I’m going to hold it and throw it into stasis as soon as you do so. Alright?”

“Hey, this is your party.” Rachel shrugged and accepted the scissors from Regina, looking up to her eyes when the sorceress tightened her hold on them.

“No, Rachel, this is your choice. I will never force you.”

Rachel smiled suddenly.

“And that’s why I’ll do it.” She took the scissors from Regina and let the older woman take the weight of hair from her. “Ready?”

Regina nodded and Rachel took the bronze scissors and the separated hair. She closed her eyes, putting the entirety of her powerful mind into willing her hair to realise what she was about. She could use it to heal, this would be no different, right? She just wanted to be able to help from a distance, that was all. She spent several moments like that, knowing better than to rush it and then –with a slow rushing breath- she snipped.

The scissors, despite their ancient and battered appearance, clipped through the handful of magically strengthened hair with a shocking ease.

Magic thundered from Regina’s hands, encompassing the skein of hair in between her hands with a shimmering cloud of purple and Rachel watched in fascination as the sorceress went to work. She had never seen Regina do it.

Heard about it, read about it, seen pictures and heard horror stories but she had never seen the queen go to work. She had even missed the duel that she had put on with Charming to entertain Henry.

It was…well…magical.

Regina, focussed completely on the hair, didn’t notice Rachel’s regard or chose to ignore it. The hair, still encompassed in its cloud of magic, floated from her hands and began to swim through the air. It whirled in and about itself, weaving and twisting, Regina conducted with precise and elegant movements from her hands and undulated to her feet, her concentration never wavering.

It was easy to see why she had been the scourge of an entire continent. Once Regina put something under the solar flare of her attentions, that was it, she was there for the duration.

Regina forced the hair within its field to spin, twining about itself and forming a whirlwind like a twister of shimmering gold encased in purple. She directed with her hands, murmuring under her breath, her eyes aglow with more purple magic. Faster and faster and faster until it was a mess of colour and sparks began to fly.

Regina appeared not to notice the way the entre shop rattled. She didn’t seem to notice the bead curtain being flung aside by Rumple’s cane and the imp himself striding out into the shop.

Rumple drew to a halt, brow arched as he watched his student work. He began to frown, something seeming to occur to him and then his eyes widened, brows raised.

With a sudden boom, it all stopped.

Regina stood panting in the middle of the shop, a purple haze cloying to her, and a thickening cloud of it slowly spinning in front of her. Bracing herself, Regina reached into the cloud and her brows rose and what she found in there. Pulling her hand free and dissipating the cloud entirely, Regina studied what she had made.

A shining golden torque fell into her hands. Similar to the one that she had made for Henry, this one had golden fists at each end, though the knuckles were studded with deep purple opals and –rather than the twisted rope of metal that Henry’s had- this torque sported a thick linked chain. Though it lacked any of the flexibility that a normal chain might have. Each link was inscribed with symbols that Rachel couldn’t recognise never mind read and they glittered as if filled with diamond dust.

“A shiny bauble, dearie.” Rumple limped closer with a stamp of his cane. “For me?”

“You wish.” Regina told him archly almost blowing a mocking kiss to him with the words and then turned to Rachel to thank her. Her face dropping with surprise. “Oh…”

“What? What is…oh.” Rachel followed Regina’s gaze to her hair and saw what had the sorceress staring. “Well, I guess that puts paid to my whole harvesting and distilling idea.”

Rachel picked up the hair that she had cut and studied it.

Bronze.

Bright shimmering, magical, bronze. It felt different, subtle, but different all the same. Rachel studied it, spooling it through her hands. The darker colour continued all the way to the tip of her hair so she had to assume that it started at the roots as well.

“Cool.” Rachel smirked.

“Rachel, I’m sorry.” Regina rested her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “I thought it would work. I really did.”

“No worries. I guess I’ll just have to rely on the scientific approach. Something we both agree I like better.” Rachel stood and began gathering her hair together, preparing to start braiding it, a process that could take hours by herself.

“Fascinating.” Rumple was at her side so suddenly that she flinched and Regina very deliberately flicked her foot out and kicked his cane from under him.

He caught himself before he landed on his face and glared at her.

“Manners.” He chided her.

“I could say the same for you.” Regina shifted her weight so that she stood between Rachel and Rumple. “If you won’t harm Henry, then you won’t harm her.”

Rumple’s brows rose and he smirked.

Rachel blanched.

She shook herself out of it.

“I’m fine, Regina. He just startled me.” Rachel stepped from behind Regina, drawing herself to her full height and looked Rumple in the eye. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Rumple blinked at her, as if confronted with an alien creature. He studied her for long moments, head tilted, and then grinned, flashing his golden tooth.

“I believe you.” He looked at Regina and arched a brow.

Regina smirked, folded her arms over her chest and looked smug for some reason.

“And, as payment for the use of the scissors and for helping Henry when I couldn’t…” Rachel looked up, thinking hard about gifting her hair again, and plucked a single strand free. She held it out to Rumplestiltskin who’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head at such a gift.

“Rachel!” Regina’s hand manacled around her wrist and she looked back at the young doctor.

“I know what I’m doing.” She spoke firmly. “This is my choice.”

“Do you have _any_ idea what he could do with that?” Regina looked more than a little harassed at the notion. She couldn’t protect Rachel if she went about giving away parts of herself for certain imps to do with as they would.

“No.” Rachel tugged her wrist from Regina’s hold and handed the hair over to Rumple who accepted it with the reference usually reserved for someone’s firstborn.

He carefully –so carefully- looped it together. Braiding it over and over until it formed a ring. A ring of woven, magical, bronze. It shimmered with radiant magic and he grinned again.

“Rachel…” Regina almost groaned. Was this little doctor EVER going to learn not to go splashing about in the big kids’ pool of magic before she could doggy paddle never mind swim?

“I took that and gave it to you with the express purpose that it be used for the betterment of someone NOT yourself.” Rachel spoke to Rumple and his grin dulled considerably. “Should you try, it’ll turn dark and useless.”

“Very clever.” Rumple enclosed the ring in his fist. He bowed his head in thanks and then looked slyly at Regina. “Have fun with this one.”

Regina just growled at him.

Rumple chuckled and then frowned at Rachel, attempting to reach back and tame her hair. A process that had to take hours by herself. He waved his hand and she yelped when it was suddenly done. An intricate mass of braids and loops that cascaded down her back, studded with gold beads and sunflower blooms, the streak of bronze from her left temple making it all the more beautiful.

“Oh.” Rachel twisted to look at herself in one of the mirrors hanging on the wall. “I don’t suppose you’re available before my shift starts every day?”

“I’ll see if I can arrange something.”

Rachel spun, surprised at Gold’s serious tone and found him admiring the ring he had made rather than looking at her.  He grinned at her suddenly.

“This is payment for _quite_ the favour, after all.” Then he turned and limped back into the stockroom.

Regina spun on her heel and glared at Rachel.

“What?”

Regina opened her mouth –no doubt to issue a blistering talking to- but a small voice stopped her.

“Mom, what were you doing?”

Regina spun to see her son standing in the doorway that Rumple had just passed through.

“It was really loud.” Henry rubbed at his eyes, still sleepy, he had been dozing whilst they all argued as to what to do about Cora.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Regina crossed the room quickly and hugged him to her. “I was just making something for Daniel. Rachel was helping me.”

Regina spun when the bell to the shop door jangled. She caught only a glimpse of Rachel’s distinctive golden hair disappearing past the window. She frowned. The good doctor hadn’t even collected her medical case before leaving. She wanted to go after the girl but Henry’s arms stole about her waist.

“I’m glad you didn’t go as well. I thought you’d left.”

“Without saying goodbye? Of course not.” Regina tangled her fingers in his hair and smoothed it down. “How are you feeling?”

“Alright, tired I guess.” Henry leaned heavily against her. “They’re all pretty scared.”

“Yes,” Regina murmured, rubbing his back, “they are, aren’t they?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not yet.” Regina continued to rub his back, forced into thinking about it again. “I suppose…it’s not real yet.”

“Daniel told me a little bit. About how bad she was to you. Not a lot.” Henry hurriedly tacked on when she snapped her head down to look at him. “Just that Cora was…really bad to you.”

“Yes.” Regina didn’t know how she felt about him knowing that. Then again, she didn’t appear to know how to feel about anything right then. “Yes, she was.”

Henry’s arms suddenly cinched incredibly tight about her middle and he buried his face in her chest.

“Don’t be like her again!” He begged her. “Don’t let her make you like that again. Stay being my mom. _Please_.”

“Oh, Henry.” Regina hugged him back almost as tightly, wary of his fractured ribs still. She waited until his hold loosened a fraction and then sank down so she was on her heels and could look him more comfortably in the eye. “I don’t know if I can promise that. It’s like…you know how Bad Wolf is driven mad by reality television? She was a normal woman until all that insipid melodrama set off her PTSD and sent her over the edge?”

“Yeah.”

“Well…Cora can do that to me and, the worst thing is, I don’t know if I can stop it.”

“You’re so much stronger now though.” Henry gripped both of her hands in his, squeezing tight. “You can beat her.”

“Yes, yes, I am.” Regina squeezed his hands back. She didn’t tell him that it just made the entire situation worse. If her mother sank her claws in again, if she brought Regina to heel like she had done _so_ many times in the past…it really didn’t bear thinking about. “I can only say that I’ll try. I’ll try with everything I have in me to fight it.”

“I just…” Henry suddenly looked close to tears. “I don’t want to lose you. We just found each other again.” She had lost before, after all. Cora had worn her down and broken her until she just couldn’t fight by herself anymore and she’d let the Evil Queen take over.

Henry had no idea what his mother had suffered at the hands of this Cora woman, but he knew how strong his mom had been –personality wise- before the curse had even broken. He knew she had solid steel running clean through her and –if Cora had been strong enough to break it back then…what had she done to shatter Regina?

He got suddenly mad.

“No.” He shook his head wildly. “I won’t let her. She can’t have you. You’re mine. Mine and Daniel’s and David’s and Ruby’s and Granny’s and Rachel’s. She doesn’t get to have you again, she doesn’t deserve you. You’re MY mom and she’s going to have to fight all of us if she wants you.”

Regina blinked at such ferocity from her little boy, another thing he had learned from her it would seem, and she smiled. Then sobered very quickly when she realised what he might do if given the opportunity.

“You are _absolutely_ not allowed to go anywhere NEAR her when she gets here.” She gripped his shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Promise me, _promise me_ , that you won’t.”

“No.” Henry shook his head. “I abandoned you once and I’ll not do it again. I hurt you, I hurt you really bad when I did it and I’m never hurting you like that again.”

“Henry…”

“NO!” He leaned down so that they were exactly at eye level with one another and his eyes bored to hers. “I will _never_ give up on you. I will fight. I will fight with sticks, with baseball bats, if I can get a gun, I’ll use that too.” He spoke louder when she opened her mouth to veto _that_ right now. “I’ll bite, I’ll kick, I’ll scratch, I’ll _headbutt her_ into meat paste if I have to but she. Can’t. Have. You.”

“Okay, this is…” Regina stalled when David suddenly appeared in the doorway, looking down at them both.

“Hear, hear.” David folded his arms over his chest and dared her to try and talk _him_ into backing down.

 _He_ already had a gun. Several in fact.

Regina rose suddenly to her feet and her jaw clenched. She looked between both of them. Henry suddenly looked a LOT like a Charming and she growled at that most of all.

“Fine.” She snapped. “I guess we’ll have to do something about her then.”

She sidled past both of them, striding into the back room to find Rumple and Belle deep in conversation over something Belle held in her hand like it was toxic. Regina stabbed him in the shoulder with her finger, turning him to face her and planted her hands on her hips.

“Right,” she spoke over his protest at such rough treatment of his suit, “the heroes have decided to go after Cora head on if she so much as looks at me so we have to take care of her _now_.”

“That’ll be a little bit difficult considering…” Rumple began in that smarmy tone that made him sound like the smartest one in the room and Regina was sooooo done with that.

“Enough!” She enunciated with a bite. “You know something. You _always_ know something. You have a plan, or a scheme or SOMETHING that we can use against my dearest mama and _your_ ex-paramour. So get your sparkly self to thinking or I’ll shake you upside down until something useful falls out.”

“You…” Rumple opened his mouth and then clipped it shut, surprised at her gall more than anything else.

“You’ve never spoken to me like that before.” He decided after a moment.

“Really? That’s what we’re going with? My syntax.”

“You’re not afraid.” Rumple frowned at her.

“Not yet, no.” Regina snapped. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to hit me like a tonne of bricks later though. I’d much rather have the guillotine ready to fall on my hag mother’s neck before I have a complete breakdown SO,” Regina sucked in a much needed breath, “if you please…”

Rumple’s jaw canted to the side and he mulled his options.

“I take it we don’t want to destroy Snow and Miss Swan alongside Cora?”

“No!” David and Henry answered before Regina could and she turned to look at them with a scowl.

“I was going to say no.” She informed them archly. “If I had to.”

Rumple hummed in his throat, scoring off the options one by one. He began to pace.

“Golem?” He turned to Regina.

“Too slow.”

“Dragon?”

“Too easily bought.”

“Arthur?”

“Too sore about one of his knights lancing his wife.”

“Hmmmmm…” Rumple continued to pace. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Regina. “Ogre!”

“Too blind.” Regina rolled her eyes. Honestly, was he even trying?

“Djinn?”

“Too  unpredictable.”

Rumple stopped and thumped his cane idly against the floor.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “this would be a lot easier without Snow and Emma in the equation.”

“A notion I am familiar with.” Regina agreed mildly and ignored the glares directed at the back of her head from David and Henry. “Needless to say, the peanut gallery is in disagreement.”

“I don’t know.” Rumple threw up a hand.” I can’t think of a single thing that might target Cora but NOT Miss Swan and Snow White.” If he was lying, it was one that even Regina couldn’t see.

“Well…how about faerie dust?” Belle joined the conversation suddenly fidgeting with the thing in her hand. “Regina is –was- allergic to it. Was that inherited?”

“No.” Rumple shook his head. “Cora once wore the shape of the North Star herself. She’s as immune to faerie dust as Regina now is to a werewolf bite.”

“North…?”

“The Blue Faerie.” Regina twisted to answer David’s question. “One of her many names. See also, Maab, the Champion Bright, Mother Superior and Christmas Tree Topper.”

“Her original name was Reuhl Gorm.”

Regina turned to look at Belle, her eyebrows raised, even Rumple looked surprised at his sweet little miss knowing that.

“They conceal this kind of knowledge in books, you know.” Belle looked between them. Ooh, she was pissed with Rumple about something.

Regina made a mental note to find out what about later and taunt her old mentor over it but was distracted by said imp having an epiphany.

“Books…paper…ink!” Rumple snapped his fingers and went so far as to flip his cane with a flourish. “That’s the defining feature. Cora is magical. Miss Swan and Snow White are not,” he shrugged, “at least not in a way we have to worry about right now.”

Regina frowned but didn’t question it.

“There is a way. It will be difficult, but I believe Miss Swan and Snow capable.” Rumple set his cane to the floor again and looked down at Henry. “When did you agree to meet with Princess Aurora again?”

“In about fifteen minutes.” Henry glanced at one of the many clocks.

“Good, I have a plan.”

Regina stood back and let Rumple take over. She watched him like a hawk but realised…she wasn’t needed.

Henry was fine, David was here, Rumple was –bizarrely- still helping and…and the torque still dangled heavily from her wrist.

She was going to have to face him again sometime and he was about to come looking for her. She could feel it. Better to head him off at the pass.

Decision made, Regina approached the bed where Henry was settling himself and knelt to tuck him securely in.

“You’re going, aren’t you?”

Regina wasn’t surprised he knew. He’d gotten very good at reading her now that he was actually seeing her.

“David will be right here. I need to go to Daniel. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“And give him his one of these?” Henry smiled and touched the torque at his neck.

“Yes, that too.” Regina leaned over him and kissed his forehead. “You’re being very brave.”

“It runs in my family.” Henry smiled. “All sides of it.”

Regina smiled and then straightened, letting Rumple sit at Henry’s side, his hands resting on top of his cane. He faltered only when Regina’s hand came down on his shoulder and squeezed.

He half turned to look at her.

“I know the rules.”

“I know.” Regina didn’t look away from Henry. “Just…be careful with him.”

“I could say the same for him.” Rumple nodded towards the torque dangling from her fingers and Regina nodded again.

Then, out of excuses and with one last nod to David, Regina left the store.

 

**_The Mayoral Manor…_ **

 

Daniel paced back and forth, wearing a hole in the marble flooring of the hallway, and tunnelled his fingers through his hair again.

She had been gone for _hours_.

Not a word, not a phone call, nothing to let him know what had happened. What Rumple had demanded of her. What piece of herself she had auctioned off in order to gain a favour from that putrid beast.

He should go over there. He knew where the shop was. Everyone knew that. He should go there and find her. Get there himself and match whatever price his foolish woman had offered for her son. Better him to take the pain. Better him to pay the price. Rumple already had his claws sunk too deep in Regina, already had her so twisted up in him that she didn’t know what to do with herself…gods, he hated this.

George, who had been watching Daniel pace and lay on the floor with his head on his paws, suddenly surged to his feet, tail whisking up and ears perking.

The lock turned over a second later and Regina appeared in the doorway.

With a bark and a scrabbling of paws, George sprinted for the door and shot out of it. Bypassing Regina entirely, racing down the path and hurdling the five foot front gate like it was just another step. He disappeared down the street. His paws flying so fast that the steel claws on his wooden one threw up sparks. He raced to Henry.

Regina had twisted to watch him go and then she huffed out a breath. She shook her head and turned to wearily enter the house. She murmured something like ‘let someone else deal with it’.

Daniel had frozen and stood in the middle of the hallway, staring at her, drinking in the sight of her. She hadn’t noticed him just yet, to busy rubbing at her forehead and closing the front door.

Her shoulders suddenly tensed, her back to him, and she slowly turned.

Daniel didn’t say anything, he didn’t know what to say. His last words to her had been in fear and anger and he didn’t know how to fix it.

Regina cautiously approached, rising up the steps from the entryway one at a time, watching him warily. Trying to assess her welcome with each step closer.

“Is Henry alright?” Daniel said the first thing that seemed relatively safe and she suddenly broke.

“Yes!” The word left her on a sob and she was suddenly hurling herself into his arms.

Daniel caught her easily, leaning back and lifting her feet clean off the floor with her impact. Her arms twined about his neck almost too tightly and she buried her face against his chest.

“You’re still here.” The words left her on a rush and he wound himself tighter still around her.

“Of course.” He spoke into her hair. “You’re going to have to do better than that to drive me away.”

She laughed wetly against his chest and sank into silence, just revelling in the feel of him.

It hit her then.

The fear, the anger, the horror at the news of her mother’s impending arrival. Seeing Daniel brought it all back. What she had lost, what she had still to lose, everything. She shook in his arms and he tried his damnedest to comfort her, to ground her against the storm shaking her from the inside out. She clutched him tighter to her and shook. She shook so hard.

“Regina…tell me. What did he take?”

“What?”

“Rumple, what was his price?” Daniel’s voice was as gentle as he could make it but he was still angry with her for going alone. For facing her demon by herself. That wasn’t that way it was supposed to be.

Not anymore.

“Oh, that.” Regina huffed out a breath. She had completely forgotten about such paltry things as deals with the devil. “Nothing.”

“Regina…”

“No.” She managed to draw away from him a little to look him in the eye. “Really. He helped Henry of his own accord. It would seem even the Dark One can’t stand to see a child in pain.”

Daniel frowned, that made very little sense to him, but she moved quickly to distract him.

“I have this.” She pulled the torque up so he could see it. “Rachel helped me make it.”

“Uh…okay?” Daniel studied it. It seemed pretty, flashy, but he had no idea what it was.

“It’s for you.”

“Oh, well, thank you but…”

“It’s to keep Hyde in check.”

“Oh.” Daniel’s arms slid down to her waist and he gave the gaudy thing a bit more of his attention. “That’s…unexpected.”

“Well, between dream worlds and revelations I had free time.” Regina hurried on before he could ask more questions. “It’s made from Rachel’s hair and it should help the energies within your body maintain equilibrium so that Hyde can’t manifest.”

She held the torque up to him and Daniel, after a moment’s hesitation, bent so that she could fit it to him.

He was surprised –and relieved- when she slipped it around his neck rather than around his brow as he had first thought.

“It can also only be removed by me.” Regina looked up at him when his eyes darted to hers. He straightened suddenly, his hand halfway to his neck to yank at the thing before he stopped himself. “Hyde can manipulate others, I didn’t want someone else trying to take it from you because of him whispering dark somethings into their ear.”

Daniel let out a slow breath and closed his eyes. He opened them only when her hands lay against his chest and she went up on her toes, kissing him softly.

“I am so sorry.”

“It’s alright, I just…some warning would have been nice.”

“Not for that. For what I’m about to do.”

Daniel frowned down at her and she supposed she owed it to him to explain why she was about to be so cruel.

“Cora’s not dead.” She forced the words quavering from her mouth. “She’s coming.”

 _“WHAT?!”_ Daniel bellowed so loud he brought out the green in his eyes.

“She’s in the Enchanted Forest, she met Snow and Miss Swan, she’s on her way here. We’re trying to stop her but…I don’t think we can.”

Daniel was stunned. He stood there, mind whirling, trying to take it all in. Shock, horror and then –on the heels of all the right kind of terrified emotions- came a streak of wild glee.

He was going to _murder_ the bitch!

Daniel wasn’t surprised in the slightest to know that such a feeling had come from him and not Hyde.

He looked down only when he saw the plume of magic at their feet. A heavy duffel bag lay there and he frowned at it.

“Where are we going?”

“Not we.” A tear tracked down her cheek and he automatically lifted his hand to swipe it gently away. “You.” He froze.

“Don’t you dare.”

“I can’t lose you again.” Regina gripped his tee shirt in both hands and shook her head. “Not again. It will shatter me, Daniel. I’ll go Dark, I’ll never come back from it. If she gets to you…I just CAN’T.”

“No.” Daniel shook his head. “Of _course_ no. I’m staying right here, where I belong.”

“No.” Regina dropped her hands from his chest and looked down. “You’ll go to Henry, once he’s delivered his message to the Enchanted Forest, you’ll take him and you’ll both disappear.”

“Regina…”

“To a place not even I will find you.” She spoke over him. “I can’t lose you again.”

“No!”

“Go.” The door unlatched and swung open. Daniel turned to look at it and then spun back to her.

“No. Never. I’ll never leave you again.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Regina clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “Go. Go NOW.”

Daniel opened his mouth to argue his point again but the gold at his neck throbbed and he yelped, hauled backwards by magic suddenly engulfing his entire body and shoving him towards the door with an unseen wind.

“NO!”

“I’m so sorry.” Regina followed him, the magical wind whipping her hair forward towards him. “I know you won’t forgive me but…I’d rather you were alive to hate me.”

“Regina, no!” Daniel hurled himself against the magic, pitting all of his vast strength against it. “We can do this. We can face her together.”

“I can’t take the risk.” She shook her head, tears streaming down her face now. She _hated_ this. Her mother wasn’t even here yet and she’d already driven a wedge between them…but this way Daniel would live. He would live and he would keep Henry safe.

If Regina had to go to the grave with her mother, she would see that done.

“But _we_ can!” Daniel struggled harder against the magic and pushed back. His feet slithered backwards over the shiny floor and he roared with rage and pain. Anguish at being pushed away in every sense of the word. “I am with you. Always. I’ll never be parted from you again!”

“Yes you will.” Regina gulped hard. “This way, you live.”

“She will DESTROY you!” Daniel succeeded in taking a step towards her and her eyes widened at the strength that took. He almost reached her and the magic pouring against him suddenly doubled. “No! I won’t let her take you from me again!” The magic pushed so fiercely against him and he struggled so wildly that his clothes began to tear.

 “No! Never again! I’ll not let her win! I won’t surrender. I won’t give up you and I’ll NEVER give in to her! I will fight to be with you. To my last breath and beyond I will be at your side! She took me once, never again!”

Daniel stumbled down the steps to the front door and clapped his hands onto the frame, refusing to let go.

“Daniel, please, you’ll hurt yourself.”

 _“YOU’RE HURTING ME!”_ He roared, the doorframe was splintering but he didn’t let go. “You hear me?! You’re doing this! Not your mother, YOU! You’re pushing me away again. Avoiding me again. Throwing my love back in my face AGAIN!”

Regina closed her eyes against the words and steeled herself.

“You can’t survive her.” Her words were so quiet in the face of his rage. “I can fight her, I can try, but not if you’re there to distract me. Not if she can use you against me. You mean too much to me.”

“I am not a pet!” Daniel’s feet were lifted off the floor briefly by the magic but he lowered them to the ground with sheer stubborn will as much as muscle power. “I am yours! I’m yours as much as you’re mine and I will NOT be taken from you again! Not even by you.”

“You can’t fight her, Daniel!” Regina threw her hands wide, suddenly getting angry too. “Don’t you see?! I’ll have to go against her with everything – _everything_ \- I have. I will have to be the monster again. I’ll have to rip out her heart, take her head, burn her to nothing. I don’t know which, but something horrible and it will be dark and it will be horrible and it is SELFISH but I don’t want you to see me do it!”

“And what gives you the right?!” Daniel snarled. “She murdered me, took my life, took me from you, took our marriage, our happiness, the children we were to have. Have I not the right to take something back? She has taken ENOUGH from us. She will take no more.”

“You can’t fight her.”

“I can and I will. You can throw me out of this house, out of your life, out of this town, you can hurl me to the ends of the earth but I will come back and I will come back roaring! I will hold her head in one hand and her shrivelled husk of a heart in the other. I will kill her by inches, breaking bone after bone. I’ll make a new saddle of her skin. I will do things to her that will be so awful they’ll make a new level of hell just to punish me for them.”

Regina’s eyes went wide and she shook her head wildly.

“No.” She lifted her hands, adding to the hurtling magic. “I won’t let her do that to you. Turning one of us into a monster was more than enough.”

Daniel snarled when she doubled the pressure against him. The doorframe shattered, forcing him to grab another handhold on the two pillars of the porch.

“It is already DONE!” He lifted his head, eyes lurid green. “See?”

The scar on Daniel’s chest flared to life with a searing green/white light. His skin darkened, his hair grew, his features sharpening. He grew, bigger, broader, the torque biting into his neck. A tail, long and slinking, sprang from his lower back and whipped the air angrily.

The pressure of the scar ripped through the magic pushing him out the door and Regina was sent sprawling by the backlash. She landed hard, slithering over the marble flooring. She rallied herself to her elbows when Hyde stormed her house.

He strode in through the front door, slamming it shut with a flick of his tail. He kicked off the shoes that were now too small for him and he hated anyway. He ripped the rags of the tee shirt that hung from his back away and then glared down at Regina.

“Now,” his dark chocolate basso voice thrummed throughout the room, “are you willing to listen to reason?”        

 


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, my plan to have everything up to date with this fic by March may have fallen a bit short SO!
> 
> Multiple updates. 
> 
> Awwwwwww yiss.
> 
> The long awaited Hyde appears first...

**Chapter 30 – Grin and Bare All**

 

“No!”

Regina threw up her hands, magic flashing, and chains spewed from her fingertips. They flew across the room, splashing over Hyde and spinning about him. They wound around his arms, his waist, his neck and his legs. The links punched into the marble flooring, grafting to the stone there.

Hyde was hauled to a halt and he looked down at the chains. He frowned and looked back up at her, arching a brow and heaving a sigh as if putting up with a child’s tantrum.

“Really?”

“How?” Regina seethed, labouring to her feet. “That torque was designed to stop you. It _should_ have stopped you.”

“Oh, it has, little queen.” Hyde chuckled at her and lifted one arm, he twisted his torso, pressing the chains binding him to his chest and the scar there.

They broke.

Regina squeaked in alarm and slashed her hand through the air, summoning more chains. Binding his wrist again, tightening the others, pulling his arms and his legs further apart.

Hyde huffed another sigh as if humouring her.

He wrenched as if to be freed just as easily once more and gusted a breath of annoyance when the chains creaked but didn’t give.

“As you can see, I am not my usual _potent_ self, but still more than enough to stave off your magic. Which I believe is exactly what the boy intended.”

“What?” Regina took a step forward and then stopped herself when Hyde’s lurid eyes zeroed in on the action. He grinned.

It was odd, to see him with such an expressive face. It was true, what he had said, he was not his whole self. He was somewhere between the monster she had known back in the Enchanted Forest and Daniel himself.

 Bigger, broader, a wild mane of hair that hung messily down his back, lurid green eyes, but his skin was paler. No longer coal black but a slate grey. His features were sharper, harsher than Daniel’s, but he had a more human mouth. Still a bit too wide and still with too many sharp teeth, but he could express himself more fully. His hands were still large, his frame roped in muscle, a neon green light shone from behind his stapled scar and steely claws glinted on his hands and feet but she could definitely see Daniel in him.

That scared her most of all.

“What have you done to him?”

“Nothing he didn’t want.” Hyde grinned again. “Nothing he didn’t ask for.”

 _“Liar.”_ Regina hissed.

“Not so. The boy and I have been in conference, I have been attempting to get him to see the error of his ways. To convince him what a fine weapon I would be. What a duo we could make.”

“Daniel would never trust you.” Regina summoned more chains when Hyde suddenly hefted against those already covering him. They creaked, cracks racing over the floor. She was running out of places to put him that didn’t touch the scar on his chest.

“Unless you backed him into a corner.” Hyde relaxed in the chains for a moment, pondering his next tactic. “Honestly, little one, trying to send him away when the woman who hurt you most threatens invasion? I thought you _understood_ this love malarkey.”

“No.” Regina shook her head. “You tricked him.”

“Wrong.” Hyde smirked. “ _He_ tricked _you._ Did you really think he’d stand meekly by whilst you fought his battles for him?”

Hyde saw the moment of inattention on her part that those words bought him and he wrenched with his arm and leg both. He hauled the chains free of their mooring in the floor, shook them away and pressed his chest to those on his other arm. They crumbled away too and it was child’s play to kick the rest from his leg as if flicking water from his foot.  He did it all impossibly fast and he was three giant steps closer to her before she managed to bind him again.

“Stop it!” Her chest heaved with panting breaths. “Daniel knows you’re evil, knows how bad it would get if you were free. He would never willingly let you out.”

Hyde threw back his head and laughed.

“You have no idea. You _honestly_ have no idea.” Hyde shook his head, chuckling still.

“No idea of what?!” Regina snarled, redeeming herself she might be but she would _never_ enjoy being laughed at.

“How he loves you.” Hyde tilted his head.

“He’s my true love.” Regina growled at him. “Of course I know.”

“No, you know that he loves you but you do not know _how_ he loves you.” Hyde bared his teeth and the chains just snapped, falling from him. She hurried to bind him with more but she had run out of space. Those that were too close to his scar just melted away.

“You think that his love must be an opposite to yours. That his will be pure and bright because yours is dark and possessive.”

Regina said nothing, trying to sink his feet into the floor and halt him that way but he moved, slithering out of the mire of suddenly liquid marble and impossibly taking another step closer to her.

“It is NOT. It is a deliciously dark, decadent, velvety possession for one another. His love is the other half of yours. Heated with anger and lust the likes of which would kill lesser people. You have both seen too much, lived too hard, for it to be anything less. It is painful, it is ecstasy, it is bloody and it is healing but it is _real_. It is terrible. It is wonderful.” Hyde seemed to focus a moment and the chains just fell away.

Regina threw up her hands, magic pouring over him, drawing the marble up from the floor. Coating him in it, halting his momentum.

For now.

“That is not true.”

“It is and you know it is.” He smirked at her but –for the first time- there was no hint of cruelty to it. Then, right then, he looked a _lot_ like Daniel. “He is your other half, little one. He makes you whole. It is less integrated for others. Those like Charming and Snow, one of them could probably survive the loss of the other, but not you and Daniel. If one goes, so does the other. If that is into death or madness –well- that is for the fates to decide.”

Regina jumped when her back hit the wall, glancing back, she saw her reflection in one of her mirrors, his hulking behind her. She whipped around again and bodily flinched when his hands boomed against the wall on either side of her head.

“Back off!” She snarled. Her hands clapped to his chest and she braced herself, trying to hold him back.

It took him a moment to notice she was actually exerting pressure against him but when he did, he was sure to halt for her.

“No.” Hyde smirked at her, yet a different smile.

 His eyes tracked over her and she felt the heat of him beat against her in waves. That delicious scent, chocolate and spice and sin. That wonderful voice pouring over her. She had been angry before, frightened at Daniel’s disappearance, but all that emotion was turning under the weight of his regard. Her heart pounded for a different reason, her breath hitched and her eyes turned black.

“What do you think is going to happen here?” Her voice –far from coming out strident and strong as she had intended- was breathy and soft. Her arms, straining futilely to hold him back, shook. “You tell me that the man I love is as dark and twisted as I am and I just magically fall into your arms? Hardly the grand romance.”

“Are you even listening?” Hyde looked suddenly annoyed, his claws scraping the wall and she felt the fear frisson through her, only adding the pounding of her heart in her ears. “I did not say he was twisted and evil I said that he is your other half. You are bound together. He is PART of you. One dies, so does the other.”

Regina very nearly whimpered at such a thought but Hyde didn’t gentle it for her.

“You can send him away. Send him a world away –a hundred worlds away- you could hide him in a pocket dimension, turn him into a bird and let him fly, you could do any of those things and _none of them would work._ ” Hyde growled at her, the sound thrumming through her, his teeth taking up her vision. “If Cora succeeds, if she breaks you, kills you, the same shall befall Daniel. What happens to you, happens to him.”

“Like I could trust you.” Regina’s voice was hoarse, her mouth dry. “You’ll say anything to get what you want.”

“Look inside, little queen, see the magic. Even I cannot falsify that.”

Regina wavered, for a moment she thought about believing that it could never happen, that her love could not be as poisonous as that, but a lifetime of evidence won out. Her senses turned inward. Her gaze focussed on the connection that –despite Hyde- still pulsed strong and her eyes burned.

“Damn you.” She whispered, a single tear tracking down over her cheek.

“Do not feel sad, that is not my intent.” Hyde leaned in close and –with a gentle flick- licked the tear away. He nuzzled against her skin, warming the cooling wet streak and she stood frozen. Pinned between him and the wall. Horrified at what she had just discovered.

“How could…? I’ve damned him.” Her arms relaxed for a moment and he wasted no time in slinking forward before she could regain those meagre inches between them. She braced herself again and he immediately stopped.

“Not so.” Hyde nipped at her ear with a sweet sting of his teeth. Absurdly trying to comfort her but with no idea as to how.      

She had known that Daniel was her death. She had told him as much, but she hadn’t believed it would go the other way. She had thought, even if she died and he still lived, that he could go on. If Daniel had died, leaving her alone again, she had known that she would have wished for death so intensely that it would simply happen. Either that or she’d have gone so dark that there would be nothing left of her. Just a monster unleashed on the world.

She had not thought the same would happen to him. She had been unable to believe it. She hadn’t wanted to be the one to break him in such a way.

“How could you be so cruel to him as to wish him life without you?” Hyde’s body arched over hers the size differential between them was so great. His body blocking natural light from falling her and leaving only the eerie green light of his scar to show the shine of her eyes.

“I can’t fight Cora with Daniel here. She’ll use him against me.” Regina tried to focus on something she could change. Something she could maybe fix.

“Ah, you are forgetting –of course- that you can use _Daniel_ against _Cora_.” He continued when she frowned at him. “You said yourself, his heart cannot be taken, I saw to that myself.”

“There are plenty of other ways for him to be harmed.”

“With me as his immune system? Not bloody likely. Admit it, you just don’t want him to see you fight. You STILL believe that he’s that naïve lad that got himself killed because he was foolish enough to put your feelings first and not kill your mother like his instincts told him he should.”

Regina’s breath caught and Hyde nodded.

“Oh yes, Daniel wanted to kill her from the first day, the first minute, the first _moment_ he realised what that bitch was doing to you. Even when she came to him, to give her false blessing, even then all he could see was that sweet spot on the jaw.” Hyde lifted a claw and traced it wickedly sharp and hair raisingly gently over her chin. “Had he punched her there, hit her just once, her head would have kicked around, her neck would have snapped and your lives would have turned out _very_ differently.”

“No, Daniel’s not…”

“ _Now_ who’s being naïve?” Hyde chuckled. “Little bit hypocritical, do you not think? To say that Daniel cannot see how dark you are when you REFUSE to admit there is darkness in him? A great, yawning, hungry blackness that starves for the chance to avenge you. It is that darkness that lets him know yours. He knows how bad you can be, he knows how deep and dripping red your colours go. He knows that you can be as monstrous as he is. He _knows._ ”

“No. He can’t. He doesn’t.”

“He can. He does. Why do you think he let me out in the first place? He wants you to see all of him too.”

“You are NOT Daniel.”

“Yes I am.”

“No.”

“ _Yes._ ”

“No. You tricked him.” Regina gulped, not even moving when Hyde dipped his head to her throat, inhaling her scent and growling happy growls at whatever he could smell. “You told him what he wanted to hear and…and…”

“Daniel is cleverer than that and you well know it.” Hyde lifted his head to look her in the eye admonishingly. “We are one and the same, he and I. Look at this form. Not merely him nor simply me. Both. He is showing his true colours…so you will show yours.”

“No.”

“Pathetic.” Hyde huffed. “No wonder you are afraid.”

“I’d be an idiot not to be!” Regina shoved at the great wall of his chest, his scar singing her hands with a delicious burn of static electricity that thrilled through her. She might as well have been against a brick wall.  

“You _are_ a fool. You are going to get both of you killed playing this foolish game of morality.”

“I am not…”

“Yes you are.” Hyde shrugged, like her protests meant nothing. “You are trying to leash the Queen. The greatest weapon in your arsenal. Even you will admit that the closest you ever came to defeating Cora, you did as the Queen. You pushed her through a mirror, you set a pirate to kill her and forced her onto the defensive every time. As…the…Queen.”

“I can’t go back to that. I’m not in control like that.” Regina shook her head. “The Queen is EVIL. What would be the point in fighting my mother if I have to be exactly what she wanted me to be in order to do it?”

“The Queen _can_ be controlled.” Hyde shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ll admit that I’ve not done a terrible job so far but it is a fine line I tread every single day.”

“As it should be but like it or not; the Queen has her uses.”

“The price is too high.”

“Higher than the one Daniel pays? He has wagered his very body on this venture, loosed me, even when I had told him I could be free of him if I but wished it.”

“That’s not true. You have to sleep sometime.” Regina bared her teeth in a grin as ferocious as one of his.

“True, but I can have that which I desire most before I need slumber once more.” Hyde smirked, leaning in closer, his lips –unbelievably soft in such a harsh face- ghosted over hers. Her breath caught and she shoved at his chest again. He wasn’t paying much attention to humouring her anymore so he didn’t really notice.

“Never.”

“This very night.” His hand spanned her throat, dangerous, so, so, dangerous but gentle too. He tilted her chin up, brushing his lips over hers again.

“No.” Regina tried to remember all the reasons she shouldn’t.

It was a struggle.

“Why not? Desire claws us both just as fiercely. I can scent it in you, little queen. You are _dripping_ for me.” Hyde stepped even closer, his thigh sliding between her legs. So high that her feet left the ground and she was at a better height for him to press a sweet almost chaste kiss to her mouth.

“It doesn’t matter if I want it.” Regina shivered in his hold when he slid his hand round to grip the back of her neck so he could taste the skin of her throat with his tongue and teeth. “Daniel doesn’t.”

“Yes he does.” Hyde chuckled and the vibration thudded through her. “If this is the only way he may see you –the whole of you. He is willing.  If through my eyes is the only way, the only way you shall release yourself, if it is the only way you shall trust him –under the armour of my sinews- then he is as willing as you are.”

“I won’t do that to him.” She gulped when he gripped the collar of her shirt with his teeth and ripped it open. The first three buttons pinging away and clattering to the floor. He growled in approval at the view. “I am _done_ with taking and taking and taking and giving nothing. I did that to other men. I won’t do it to him.”

“You do this already.” Hyde chuckled grinding his thigh between her legs until she whimpered. “Every time you deny yourself -every time your fear twines you in a bondage of your own making, every time you push him away so he cannot see you and every time you tame yourself- you take from him and you give nothing.”

“I…” Regina had no argument for that aside from the distraction offered by Hyde nibbling on her ear.

“Surrender to yourself, little queen. Become strong. Give the Evil Queen what she desires, give her me, and she shall be as enslaved to you as I am to Daniel.”

“You hardly act the slave.” Regina sighed when his head dipped and he nibbled her clavicle, pressing wet sucking bites to her skin. She shivered with each jolt of sweet pain.

“You jest.” He ground himself against her, the hot iron bar of his cock digging into her belly. “I have not harmed you, I use no force. I am immune to your magic, this I have proved, but it is Daniel that halts me. It is _his_ body. I but play for a time.”

“This could be an act.” She whispered.

“It is not.” He shifted her higher against the wall, seizing her in a brief but stunning kiss. She clutched at his shoulders, nails digging in until blood welled and both of them groaned.

“No!” She twisted her head away. “The queen is not so easily contained.”

“Right now, no. As you fight her, she fights back. It is in her nature. Sate her though, train her so that doing your bidding gives her pleasure the likes of which she has never known, and even she can be brought to heel.”

“I cannot be _tamed_.” Regina growled suddenly looking a lot less –or perhaps more- herself.

Hyde grinned and spanned her thigh in one hand, parting her legs so he could fit between them.

“Even the Queen cannot fight me and I will _not_ fight her. We are perfect foils to one another. Do not just feed the wolf, little queen, bring it to heel. Give her what she wants and you can use her as she so often used you.”

Regina dragged clawed nails down over his arms and he groaned in pleasure.

“That’s it, little one, let her out. Let me have you. You have wanted it for decades and now you may have it. Every inch.” He continued to grind into her, his cock riding between her legs, driving her mad. “I am a little smaller like this. I should _just_ fit. It shall be snug, but I am patient. I can go slowly –to begin with- break you in gently.”

Regina whimpered at what those words did to her.

“Delicious female. I shall _defile_ you in the most wondrous of ways.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t.” She tried to shake her head but his massive hand still spanned the back of her neck.

“Oh, yes you can.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Which is why it feels right.” Hyde bent his head suddenly and rasped that long tongue of his down her cleavage. She jolted at the sensation and buried her fingers into his mane of hair. It was softer than she had expected. She had thought it would be like the mane of a lion or the pelt of a wolf. Not soft and silky like human hair.

A sudden premonition of all that hair being dragged over naked skin caused her legs to tighten over his hips and he thrummed a happy growl, rocking his hips into hers.

“Nothing betwixt Daniel and yourself is healthy as you are now. There is too much mistrust, too much hiding. You must be all of yourself, let yourself free. Give yourself to Daniel…give yourself to me.”

“He won’t…he won’t understand.” Regina closed her eyes against him and that just made it worse, not knowing where he was going to touch her next.

“Yes he does. Daniel knew what I was about when he handed over the keys to the house, as it were. I made no secret of wanting your legs wrapped around my neck.”

Regina gasped her hand planting against his chest when he leaned in to kiss her again. She knew if he did it one more time, she would break.

She hadn’t a chance of stopping him, stronger than her as he was, but he halted anyway, let her have that.

“Give in.” He lifted her fingers, kissing them one by one and she went very still. “Give yourself to me, Regina.”

Her name. He had used her name. Never, not in the Enchanted Forest and not here, had he used her name. She was his little queen not the softer, more vulnerable woman that could be so easily broken if harm came to her loved ones.

So Regina did.

He saw it in her eyes, the unspoken permission, and Hyde was on her.

His hand completely spanned the back of her head, yanking her mouth under his and his tongue lanced into her mouth so fiercely that she thought she might choke.

She was a little slower on the uptake. Her hands rested hesitantly against his chest even as he ravaged her mouth and crushed her against the wall, but it was that aggression, that borderline violence, that awoke the dark in her. The Evil Queen, wicked and hungry, rose to the surface.

Regina did some growling of her own, her hands climbing up to his shoulders and then spearing into his hair, nails biting into his scalp.

Hyde groaned like other men had when she’d sucked their cock and she realised then. She could be mad, she could be bad, she could take him hard, make him bleed, and he would love it.

He tore at her clothes, shredded her shirt on his claws and ripped her slacks from her legs. He bit her bra away, pressing sucking bites over her breasts, climbing down her body to pull her legs over his shoulders.

Regina, still braced against the wall, kept a tight hold on his hair. Her spine arched and she gasped when he buried his face between her legs and nipped at her with his teeth through the silk of her panties. He toyed with her like that for a while. Teasing her into writhing in his hold whilst denying her the depth of sensation that would send her over the edge.

He pressed hard licks to the wet silk between her legs and was more than a little startled when those panties suddenly evaporated her and his tongue thrust into her.

Regina gave a little scream, grinning at having gotten what she’d wanted and then dissolved into a groan when Hyde punished her for ruining his fun. He held her hips in a bruising grip and speared her with his tongue. Regina screamed again, twisting in his hold, her nails digging into his scalp.

Daniel was good at this. Good because of practice and paying attention to what made her gasp.

Hyde was good at it because his tongue was nearly nine inches long and he didn’t give a fuck about her sanity in the slightest.

His tongue curled up within her, thrashing her g-spot, his teeth abraded her clit, his claws curled against her skin, raising red welts and he _growled_ into her. That thunderous vibration of his teeth and tongue pressing so hard into her flesh sent her clean over the edge.

She screamed again, fast going hoarse under his ministrations, and bucked in his hold and he kept on and on and _on_. Lashing her with his tongue, biting her with those razor teeth, teasing her with the danger and blowing her mind with a terrifying orgasm that he just would not let _end_.

It was long, long, torturous brain frying minutes later that he finally let her down off the plateau of mad nirvana. He straightened, her legs sliding down over his arms, hooked over his elbows and he smirked at her, making a show of licking his lips.

“Beast.” She growled at him, tugging at his hair, she loved his hair. She pulled him closer, biting at his lips, tasting herself there, and he suddenly crushed her to him.

Regina squeaked when her legs were forced impossibly wide, spanning his chest and arms both with a burn of the muscles in her inner thighs. She howled, eyes on fire, when the antitheses of his scar’s science went up against the magic pouring off her.

Right between her legs.

He chuckled, dragging her up and down over the ridges of the scar’s staples and she bucked in his hold, frantically trying to escape the torrent of unstoppable sensation. It _burned_.

It burned in the best way.

She clawed at the walls, ripping wallpaper, scorching it with her magic. She fought him, she fought him hard but she just couldn’t do anything to stop him. He was completely in control of her. He had been right, he hadn’t hurt her –not any more than she wanted him to- and she couldn’t hurt him.

Which meant she could be herself completely.

He leaned in close to her again, seizing her in another fearsome kiss, the angle changed and she came again. Just like that.

She _savaged_ him. Her nails biting deep until blood welled, her teeth sinking into his lip and her skin was so hot, smoking with the magic that it singed him wherever he touched her.

She barely noticed him pulling her away from the wall, holding her up with one hand, his other spanning the back of her head and keeping her mouth fused to his for those hard and biting kisses. She squirmed in delight when he suddenly had her on the floor and his hot and heavy weight on top of her. He had put her down on the hearth rug in the living room, the nearest spot that was perhaps soft enough so she wouldn’t be shattered by what he was about to do to her.

 She clawed at his shoulders groaning when he pressed his chest to her and scorched her with the scar again.

Regina burned away his jeans in retaliation and he chuckled into her mouth. She sucked on his tongue and he ground against her, the dripping head of his cock slithering between her legs in wicked sensation.

It was forbidden, fucking a monster. He could kill her in an instant. Take her throat even as he fucked her and she wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.

How thrilling.

“Now.” She bit his already savaged lip. “Take me now.”

“We must go slowly.” He reminded her. “I have no desire to tear you in half.”

Regina’s only response was to reach down, wrap her small fingers around his huge cock and stroke him.

Hyde growled, shivering all over and thrust into her hand with a speed that nearly burned her.

“Careful, wench.” He nipped at her throat with his teeth in warning. “I shall not be gentle, but I do not wish to break you.”

“I can take it. Take you.” Regina sounded drunk even to her own ears. She felt like she was in heat. That primitive aspect of Hyde that brought out the wildness in those around him seemed to hit all of Regina’s buttons at once. She felt invincible, a goddess of lust and blood, and she wanted the terrifying monster between her legs to prove that she couldn’t harm him. That he could take her too.

“Big words for such a tiny female.” He nudged at her with his cock to illustrate his point and she whimpered at the feel of the broad head of his mammoth cock sliding against her tight cunt.

It was not a whimper of fear.

Regina wrapped her legs about his hips, digging her heels into him to urge him closer and still stroking him. His cock swelled and jumped in her hand, dripping precum onto her fingers, making him slick and her wet. Her fingers could barely circle his girth and she just shivered in delight. Regina thrust her hips towards him, trying to impale herself on his shaft and he shook, braced on his arms over her.

His eyes were wild, roving over her skin like he owned every part of her and perhaps he did. His long tongue traced over his white teeth and his hips rocked the tiniest bit against her as if testing the fit.

“Now.” She taunted him, grinding up against him.

He growled in warning. His tail slinking up, snaking around her waist. She gasped at the feel of that velvet skin rubbing her the wrong way even as her back was forced to arch over the thick band of muscle winding tight about her.

He had to do something. She was going to go mad any second with the anticipation if he didn’t _do_ something. She could think of only one thing that would drive him over the edge.

She leaned up into him, her lips ghosting over his mouth and whispered into him.

“Daniel would have had me screaming his name by now.”

She almost heard the twang as his control snapped. With a roar, Hyde gripped her hands in his, pinning them to the floor over her head, yanked her up towards him with his tail and thrust into her. Right to the hilt. In one long lunge.

Regina screamed, magic lashing out of her and burning him. The agony of yet another orgasm savaging her. The pain was tremendous, even as wet as she’d been, and he didn’t give her a chance to recover.

 The pace he set was punishing, the thump of bone meeting bone could be heard every time he thrust his hips against hers, his tail about her waist abraded her skin and his tongue forced its way between her lips when he kissed her like he would devour her.

She _loved it._

Regina clawed at his back, nails raking furrows, seized his hair in her hands and luxuriated in the silken feel of it falling over her, dancing across her skin. Her legs wrapped around his sharp hipbones so tightly she knew she’d bear bruises for it and over and over and over again, his scar burned her.

Hyde took her hands in his again. Pinning her wrists to the floor above her head with one huge hand spanning both of them. His other hand tangled in her hair, combing through the strands with those razor claws of his though he was careful not to cut her. He wrenched her head back, his tongue sliding up her throat and his huge teeth dragging over the sensitive skin there.

Hands, more hands, were suddenly all over him. Phantom hands that she had conjured to drive him wild. They scraped unseen nails down over his chest, toying with his nipples, tugging at the curling hair there, they dug into his back, raking furrows that oozed blood and stung with sweat. When he kissed her again, her tongue lengthened against his, becoming just as long in a drugging knotted kiss. Her magic ran riot and she did nothing to stop it.

 He purred into her.

She pleased him immensely. Giving him what he wanted. She let him have her, all of her, held nothing back. For the first time, she gave it all up and let herself be taken.

He was lost in the sensation of repeatedly burying himself balls deep in the tight heat of her cunt, of the pliant curves of her little body giving way to the hard planes of his, her little gasps and mewls were music to his ears and she did scream so wonderfully whenever he wrung another orgasm from her. He had lost count of how many times she had completely lost control but the carpet was on fire, so he was taking that as a sign of approval.

He licked at her skin, tasting the salt of her sweat, hungry for every piece of her he could steal for he knew he might never get the chance to have her again. With that in mind, his pace became more frantic, trying to brand himself to her. If he marked her often enough, she’d run out of magic before she could heal them all. She’d have to pick a mark to keep. His mark. On her.

Hyde’s teeth scraped back and forth over her throat. He growled into her, letting her know he was so violently close to the edge and she arched, baring her neck to him completely.

“Mine.” He snarled into her.

“Never.” She chuckled wickedly, writhing up against him. Intentionally goading him.

 _“Mine._ ” The word thundered from him in a growl, each word bitten against her throat he was so close when he spoke. “Say it.”

“No.” She gasped when his pummelling thrusts became slower, shallower. She moaned for him. “Hyde…”

“Ah, so you can say my name.” Hyde settled most of his weight on his elbows and pulled his cock from her so just the flared head remained inside. He thrust in little teasing jolts, pinning her to the floor with his greater weight, stopping her from doing anything to ease her passion on him. Not yet anyway.

And his scar branded her.

“Hyde!” Regina twisted under him, desperately trying to urge him to take her again but he was content to torment her.

“You know what I want.”

She growled at him.

“Use your words.” He licked at her neck and lower, nibbling at her breasts, toying with her nipples. “Tell me.”

“Damn you. Fuck me!” She twisted under him and he just laughed at her. “Bastard.” She sagged under him.

“Such language.” Hyde admonished her. “Do you kiss Daniel with that mouth?”

The slap caught him by surprise.

Regina had twisted, sliding one of her hands from his hold and then applied it to his face with such a clap that it echoed twice in the huge house.

Hyde surged up and over her, rising onto his hands, and roared in her face. Her hair was blasted back by the sound. She winced at the pressure of it against her ears and, just so she deserved it, she slapped him again.

“Witch.” Hyde reared back from her, pulling out and leaving her gasping on the floor.

She was not given long to miss him.

Hyde uncoiled his tail from about her waist so quickly that she was flipped onto her stomach. She gasped, suddenly on her elbows and knees and yelped when he seized her hips in an iron grip and hauled her back onto his cock.

Regina’s back arched and her nails scored through the carpet, rumpling the rug beneath them.

Hyde nudged her legs further apart so that he could slide right in to the hilt and slammed her. He toppled forward, covering her, branding her back now. One hand braced against the floor in front of her so she couldn’t slide away from his thrusts and the other arm wound around her waist and hauled her back to meet every one.

“Mine.” Hyde bit at her shoulders. “All mine.”

His hair tumbled down over her, dragging feathery and cool over her heated skin and she moaned as if dying. Hyde continued to lay bruising bites in a map of sweet pain across her back and shoulders and –when he could take no more- he set his teeth to her neck, completely encompassing her nape with his jaws.

Regina gasped, realising that he could very well kill her if he lost control, and cavorted beneath him. She sank down onto her elbows, dipping her spine to allow him a better angle, rocked back to meet every one of his thrusts and rippled internal muscles along the length of his cock from root to tip.

Hyde was nearly constantly growling now, intent on fucking her into the floor, and she wanted it no other way.

The arm around her waist changed in angle, his massive hand slithering down, questing between her legs.

Regina’s breath hitched when those razor claws raked so dangerous and so gently over the slick folds of her cunt. She shivered and twitched in his arms, knowing she was a hair’s breadth from another screaming orgasm and decided she didn’t want to be alone this time.

He had fried her brain, bringing her off more times than she could count and the least she was going to do was make him come so hard she set his hair on fire.

She moaned and struggled for him. Uselessly fighting him because his strength was so great that she hadn’t a chance but he liked to force her to take him at his fullest. He thrust into her so hard that her knees left the floor every time, she felt like her spine was going to concertina but she didn’t care. She was intent on making him completely lose it.

Her hands burned cinder prints into the carpet, the bones within glowing a flaring orange and she reached back, touching any part of him she could reach. He snarled a purr into the nape of her neck, his skin sizzling wherever she touched him. He sat up, so that she could better reach and hauled her down onto him with his massive strength. Lunging so deep every time she thought the top of her head was going to blow off but he didn’t stop and neither did she.

Her hands changed, cooling rapidly, frost forming over her skin and her fingers turning blue. She reached down and scored her nails over the rippling muscles of his thighs, ripping a roar from him at the shock of cold against his molten skin.

His scar scorched her back, leaving seared imprints that she’d bear for hours and she could feel that alien power of his throbbing through him, lighting up his spine and nervous system like a Christmas tree. Hmm, she wondered…

Her own tail grew from her lower back and he only chuckled into her neck, scoring those wickedly sharp teeth of his over her skin again and again and again. Her tail twined about him, reaching back and wrapping about the base of his tail.

He growled something like a question and she chuckled, tightening her new tail and giving a sudden _yank_.

She caught him completely by surprise and he roared, dragging her down onto him, right to the hilt. His claws scored her hips so fiercely that he drew blood, his teeth sank into her where her neck met her shoulder and he exploded into her.

Regina screamed.

It was _cold._

He came hard into her, so hard she could feel every jet, and it was _freezing._ Regina shrieked, her nails raking over him, her hands stained with blood and every over-sensitised internal muscle she had going into spasm at the shock of ice in her cunt.

Throughout it all, Hyde’s teeth worried her, he burned her with that scar of his and froze her insides with his dripping cock.

Regina panted, hanging limply in his hold, flopping back against his chest and trying to get her brain to fire on at least a few cylinders again. She closed her eyes, cataloguing her many wounds and –bizarrely- smirking.

“Again.”

Her eyes flashed open.

“Can you take me again? Do you need time to heal?” Hyde raked his claws gently over her in zinging trails, awakening nerve endings she’d thought long since overloaded. She shivered all over.

“No.” Her voice was hoarse.

“No _what?_ ” He snarled into her neck, nipping at her throat.

“Again.” Regina still had her tail and she gave his tail another tug, causing his huge cock to jerk in her. They both hissed at the sensation. “Again and again, lover. Again until we break from it.”

Hyde rolled his hips beneath hers, his huge hands spanning the cinch of her waist completely, he worked himself as deep as he could go until she was in danger of blacking out and chuckled when her head lolled back against his shoulder.

“As my queen wishes.”

It was a _long_ night.

 

**_The Next Morning…_ **

 

Regina, she mused, was a coward.

She stood in the bathroom of Snow’s loft and looked at herself in the mirror. She almost managed a smile when she thought about how David had greeted her new appearance. He’d done it surprisingly well actually.

She didn’t look much like herself at all really.

Her skin was white, white like marble, her fingers and toes sported long black claws, a tail slunk from her lower back and dragged along the floor behind her, her lips were a raw liver red, her hair longer and wilder down her back, her ears pointed and her eyes glowed a deep purple like lamps in her skull.

That, and she wore nothing but her black overcoat.

All in all, Charming had opened the door to Missus Hyde.

She hadn’t even taken the time to switch back to human form before she had left the house. She had awoken to find Daniel –once more in human form- wrapped around her in the ruins of her couch and had panicked. She had wriggled out from his hold, snatched up her coat and teleported out of the house.

She’d had no real destination in mind and hadn’t even realised what she had been thinking until she had appeared in the hallway outside the apartment.

She had knocked, quietly so as not to wake Henry, but frantically enough that David had thrown open the door already wild eyed.

He had damn near swallowed his tongue when he had seen her and it had been a furiously quiet exchange whilst she tried to calm his panic.

She’d had to assure David that Daniel was fine, that Hyde hadn’t somehow done this to her (well, not literally, she had done it herself but…never mind) and that she would explain everything properly once she was showered, looked like herself and no longer smelled like a brothel.

To that end, Regina carefully plucked her overcoat open with those razor claws of hers, and her mouth dropped open when she saw the full extent of what he had done to her.

Bites, lurid and red, completely spanned her throat. Marking her shoulders, chest and even lower over her belly. Deep scratches raked her over her flanks from her ribs all the way to mid-thigh, bruises mottled over her inner thighs and she seemed to have _several_ Y-shaped scars of her own. He had branded her with them repeatedly. Twisting, she saw that the stamped pattern repeated over her back as did more bites and scratches.

What had he done?

What had _she_ done?

Regina gulped in several panicked breaths and forced herself to calm down when her tail began to thrash in response to her heightened emotions.

Well, that was the first thing that had to go.

She shrank the tail away. Opened her eyes and set about fixing the rest of herself. Her hair shortened once more, but she left it falling to her shoulders. That stupid halfway length where it was too long to hang loose if she was doing something and too short to pin up was pissing her off. Her skin softened, losing the marble density she had given it to survive Hyde’s affections. She retracted her ebony claws and paled the colour so she had human hands once more. She pressed her lips together and made them look less wet and –apparently- tempting to certain monsters. She fixed her ears and –finally- blinked the glow from her eyes.

Next came the healing. It was a time consuming task but suitably distracting so that she didn’t have to think too much as to what she had done the night before.

She had…betrayed him.

She had cheated on Daniel.

Her stomach flipped uncomfortably and Regina pressed her lips together to work down the gag reflex that her horror triggered.

She had never been monogamous. She had intended for Daniel to be her one and only, but she had given up on that idea when she had given up on being a good person. She might have been married to Leopold but she’d had no interest in remaining faithful to him. There had been Jefferson, after she had truly given up on bringing Daniel back, a palace guard that had been her favourite, Graham of course, Hook…the list went on for an uncomfortably long time.

Now, now she’d been lucky enough to have Daniel back and she’d thrown it away.

Hyde had told her what she’d wanted to hear, tempted her with something she’d wanted for decades and –hateful bitch that she was- she’d given in. She’d let him convince her and she’d folded like a cheap damn wallet.

Idiot. She berated herself. Whorish, broken, evil, _idiot_.

Regina frowned when she reached back to heal the last brand of that hateful Y-shaped scar on her back and found it wouldn’t budge.

She dropped her hand so that she could study it, purple motes of magic swirling about it like tiny fireflies, yes, she had enough magic. Reaching back and twisting to look in the mirror this time, Regina set her fingers to the scar and poured more magic over it.

Nothing.

Again and again, she levelled the healing spell at it and it remained.

Regina’s eyes flashed purple and she huffed out an annoyed breath through her nose, magic pluming from her like smoke. She shook her head sharply, not point in losing her temper. It looked like she would have a constant reminder of what she had done etched into her flesh.

Super.

Regina twisted again and glared at the scar. It was a deep bruised purple, almost crimson red in the central line of it, morphing through purple, blue and even a hauntingly familiar green the further from the burn it got. It was perfectly placed on her back as well. The leg of the Y running over her spine and the two upstretched arms spanning her from shoulder to shoulder.

Regina pressed her lips together and sighed. It ached. She could feel the bone deep pain of it right through her body to her sternum.

She supposed it was the least she deserved.

Ignoring it for now, Regina shoved away from the sink and stepped into the shower and the stinging hot spray already hissing there. She took a long time to scrub the stink of what she had done from her body and, when she finally stepped from the shower, her skin pink from repeated latherings, she once more felt…human, she supposed.

Regina wrapped a fluffy towel about herself and stepped out of the bathroom, pondering how much complex magic she was up to. Her best bet was to probably summon some clothes from her closet or…she smiled, or she could use the clothes that David had lain out for her.

Regina picked up the jeans that were _far_ too big for her and hugged them to her chest. He’d known she’d go naked before she wore something of Snow or Emma’s and he’d donated some of his own clothes.

Flannel shirt and faded jeans –the horror- but it was nice and he didn’t have to and he’d done it anyway.

David truly was her friend. Not just keeping her close because he had to keep an eye on her, not putting up with her because of Henry and not magically compelled to because of bonds of loyalty forced on him but…because he wanted to.

For the first time in a long time…someone wanted to be her friend.

Great, now she wanted to cry.

Regina picked up a pair of shorts that he’d left under the jeans and shirt and made a face. Then again, there was friendship and there were boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. She laughed a wet sound when she saw the sticky note stuck to them. She should have known better than to doubt him.  

_Don’t make that face, they’re fresh out the packet._

_Brand new!_

_Coffee’s on when you’re ready._

_J_

Needless to say, magical tailoring was a lot simpler than summoning something from all the way across town (at least this way she only needed to conjure one of her bras) and she warped his clothes so that they fit her in a matter of minutes.

Finally out of excuses, she had to go downstairs and face him.

David was sitting at the breakfast bar, cup of coffee in hand, reading the newspaper. He looked up when she padded down the stairs and stood uncertainly at the bottom. She bumped her fist against her thigh and he sighed.

Without another word, he got up from where he sat, walked over to her and tugged her into his arms.

Regina was surprised and went stiff all over, intending to yank herself from his hold, but he hugged her tighter and spoke softly.

“We can just sit together if you want.”

Regina coughed a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob and her arms cinched tight about his chest. She clung to him and thought about how bizarre it was, how far they had come. Just weeks ago, had they been in a similar position, she’d either have been seducing him with the aid of magic or he’d have been trying to crush her in a brutal bear hug.

David held her for exactly as long as she needed and then pulled away, holding her at arm’s length and looking into her eyes. He smiled and nodded, turning away without a word and pouring her a cup of coffee.

“Thank you.” Regina accepted the mug of black tar pretending to be a drink and sipped, absorbing the scalding temperature and tongue coating flavour gratefully.

“Just try not to pass out again. I think it’s early even for Doc Towers.” David smirked and clinked his mug against hers before drinking his own coffee.

“Yes and…I’m under the impression that she’s displeased with me.”

“Why?” David ambled over to the couch and sat, patting the space beside him. Regina stepped over the arm of the couch and crouched, legs tucked up close to her chest, at the other end from him.

“Haven’t a clue.” Regina shrugged, holding her mug with both hands and trying to leech the warmth from it. “She left the shop rather suddenly yesterday and…I’ve been busy. I didn’t follow up.”

“I’m sure she’s fine. She’s a big girl.” David ignored asking what she had been busy about and Regina sat fidgeting for a long moment before it seemed to just fall out of her.

“So…I slept with Hyde.”

David froze, just went completely still, with his coffee mug halfway to his mouth.

“Well,” Regina stared into her own coffee, “perhaps ‘slept’ is inaccurate. There was neither much sleeping nor an actual bed involved. It was more the wall, the floor, the couch, against the fireplace and I do believe the ceiling at one point.”

Regina finally managed to shut herself up through the simple means of biting her lip and David slowly –very slowly- turned his head to look at her. She watched him with wide terrified eyes and he tilted his head.

“Was it good for you?”

Regina gusted a surprised and relieved laugh. She didn’t know why she was relieved. Maybe because he hadn’t turned her away even though she’d done something terrible? She didn’t know. She wasn’t good at this. Hell, she wasn’t even good at loving her true love.

“Yes.” Regina clacked her nails against her coffee cup. “Yes it was. Until this morning.”

David couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“How is that even…? Regina he’s _huge_.”

“It wasn’t. The torque worked. Kind of. The Hyde that appeared was a hybrid of Hyde and Daniel. He told me that he can only manifest that way now. It’s Daniel’s body and he can…but play for a time.”

David frowned.

“So how’d he get out in the first place?”

“I,” Regina heaved in a deep breath, “I panicked. I was fine when I left you yesterday to go and give him the torque, I thought I would be okay and then I saw him and…lost it. It hit me. What I could lose, _who_ I could lose, when Cora gets here and…I collared him with the torque and tried to use it to send him away.” Regina sipped her coffee.

“Oh, well, no wonder he came out screaming.” David snorted and rolled his eyes at her glare.

“I was scared!” Regina glanced over at where Henry was sleeping on the bed not far from them and turned back to David in a quieter tone. “Sending Henry and Daniel away means that…I can do what I have to do to win.”

“You’re just as bad as Snow.”

Regina threw a pillow at his head and he deflected it harmlessly.

“Seriously, strong women are wonderful and all that, but you drive us guys crazy when you think you have to deal with everything yourselves.” David shrugged. “Snow’s done it to me more than once, thinking she had to ride off into the sunset and deal with you all by herself. The whole apple thing was as much her stupid fault as it was yours.” David told her sternly. “That and the gorgon thing too. Ruined a perfectly good honeymoon. I could have been getting laid but noooooo, we were off to find a gorgon to turn you to stone when some of us were already pretty hard.”

Regina burst out laughing at David’s much maligned expression and she forced herself to quiet when he glared at her. It melted away after a moment when he saw he’d succeeded in lightening her mood a little.

“So, the Hyde that was…with you last night was something between Daniel and the monster I saw?”

Regina sobered and nodded.

“Well…then it stands to reason that everything that Hyde did last night Daniel did too.”

Regina’s eyes flashed to his and she shook her head. He spoke over her before she could voice her protests.

“Think about it, you said yourself that the torque worked. Hyde might have been the one doing the talking but Daniel had to _let him_.” David shrugged. “Is it COMPLETELY outwith the realm of possibility that Daniel let Hyde do what he wanted? What you wanted?”

“Daniel would never willingly hand me over to someone else.” Regina shook her head. “Not after my mother selling me to Leopold.” Regina’s teeth clipped together and she looked sharply away from him. There were some things they couldn’t talk about.

“The way I hear it…Daniel handed someone else _to you_.” David ignored her mention of her first husband.

Contrary to what he knew she believed, David was in the queue to punch Leopold in the head should the opportunity ever present itself. A man nearly thrice a girl’s age proposing to her _knowing_ that she couldn’t refuse? The bastard. You don’t refuse a damn king when he asks anything of you. Not in their world. He didn’t know how old Regina had been at the time but the words ‘too damn young’ sprang to mind. Broken from losing Daniel, sold to a man older than her father, tortured by her bitch of a mother and then…then forced into ‘marital duties’.

It made David sick.

He hadn’t thought about it for a long time. Hadn’t wanted to think about it. He hadn’t wanted to attribute human emotions, justifiable motivations, to anything that Regina had done and –now- it was all he could do. She had been so damn broken when he had first gotten to know her when Daniel had come back. So broken that he thought she’d _never_ be able to sit and have a conversation like this with him but here she was. She was a survivor and –up until now- she’d always had to do it on her own.

Not anymore.

“Regina,” he sorted his words, not entirely sure where to begin but went for broke anyway, “you’re not that broken little girl anymore. You’re a strong, independent, fierce woman. I know that about you and I’ve barely scratched the surface of who you are. Daniel knows you, knows you better than you even know yourself I think. If he thought this was what you needed…maybe you should trust him.”

Regina gulped hard and stared down into her coffee again.

“If I’m not broken…why do I need more than he can give me?” Regina didn’t look up from whatever she was divining in the coffee mug. “How could I be so cruel to the man that I love so completely? How can I look him in the face after I’ve essentially just told him that he’s…not enough?”

“Is that what you told him?”

Regina looked up at him and David sighed when he saw how unutterably _sad_ she was. She thought she had ruined things, broken the most precious thing in her life like she had always done. She’d been raised to believe that she couldn’t have nice things and –even after everything, everyone, she had gained in the last few weeks- she still believed it.

“Do you not think that maybe you told him that you can accept all of him?” David’s voice was gentle but firm. “Like it or not, Hyde is part of Daniel now. For the rest of his life, the shadow he casts will be Hyde. A monster intent on owning you. How scared do you think he was at the prospect of losing you to him? How _terrified_ do you think he was that he would lose control, that Hyde would hurt you? Look at you, a night in his arms and you’re fine. A little beat up, sure, but you enjoyed every bruise by the sounds of things. I’m not sure, ‘cause I know Daniel even less than I know you, but I know that _I_ would be so relieved and so _proud_ that the woman I loved could love every dark and nasty piece of me. No matter how big that piece may be at any given time.”

Regina stared at him for a long moment, her face blank of expression and –slowly- she smiled.

“That was surprisingly eloquent.”

“Hey, not just a pretty face, you know.”

Regina smirked and huffed something like a laugh. She gulped and sobered just as quickly.

“I’m so scared.” Regina shoved a hand through her longer and somewhat damp hair. “What if that’s not it at all? What if I’ve ruined everything?”

“What if you haven’t?” David shrugged his shoulders and reached out, resting a hand on her cold feet.

“Ruining everything has always been more likely when it comes to me.” She muttered.

“Hey, you’ve broken a lot of habits recently, haven’t killed anyone in _months_. Who’s to say you can’t break that one too?” David smiled when she did.

She was quietly amazed that he could so casually joke about something like that. She realised that he really thought she had changed. That she was a different person from the one that had rained torment on him –on all of them- for decades. It was beginning to dawn on her that maybe he was right. Maybe she _was_ different.

“Isn’t Daniel –of all people- worth the risk to find out?”

Regina pressed a fist to her mouth and thought about it for long moments. Of course he was, they both knew that was her kneejerk response, but the hardened bitch in her wasn’t so quick to voice it. She had survived because of that same bitch and it was a _deeply_ entrenched habit to take her advice on certain things.

“But if Daniel’s mad at me…then it will be easier to push him away.” She stared at the stupid knitted afghan over the back of the couch. She was struck by the sudden urge to set fire to it because she knew Snow had knitted the damn thing, but she repressed it admirably. “If I can put some distance between us…it’ll be easier to fight my mother.”

“Why would you do that?!”

Regina twisted to see Henry sitting up in the bed, glaring at her. He reached up and scrubbed the sleep from his eyes with one hand. Then went right back to glaring at her.

“Henry…” Regina turned and climbed over the arm of the couch, stumbling when the brand on her back seared her.

“You okay?” David’s hand went to her elbow and she nodded hurriedly, rolling her shoulders and ignoring the way it stung.

“No!” Henry glowered at her. “You don’t get to do that! You don’t get to push any of us anymore! ‘SPECIALLY Daniel!”

“Henry, that’s not what I meant…”

“Really?” Henry scooted away from her when she sat on the bed and reached for his arm. “’Cause that’s what it sounds like!”

“Cora’s dangerous…” Regina tried again but he was having none of it, wrenching his arm out of her reach again.

“No shit!”

Regina blinked at the language from him and automatically opened her mouth to scold him but he steamrollered over her.

“How can someone so smart be so dumb?!” Henry demanded of her. “We’re family. You’re stuck with us. We’re not going anywhere. You CAN’T push us away and least of all ‘cause it’s ‘ _easier_ ’.”

“Cora will kill all of you to hurt me!” Regina thundered at him, the first time she had truly yelled at him and his eyes flew wide, rocking back away from her. “Do you understand? Not hurt, not torture, not ransom, KILL. She will _murder_ each and every one of you just to get my attention. She’s not _like_ me, she doesn’t want people to suffer, she wants to own them. She wants to own me.”

“Then why are you giving yourself to her?” Henry growled right back at her. “If you push us away, if you send us away, if you try to stand alone against her, you’ll LOSE! You couldn’t win before, that’s why you became the Evil Queen in the first place, you can’t do this just by yourself.”

“And I can’t lose any of you.” Regina’s voice was soft and she looked so sad at the very thought of it that Henry softened a little.

“What do you think will happen if you keep pushing everyone away?”

“At least you’d all be alive.” Regina gave a lopsided smile without humour.

“You’ve lived with a big hole in your heart, mom. You know how painful it is. You really wanna do that to all of us?”

Regina blinked at him. She’d never…she hadn’t thought…did she mean that much to them?

“You’re so stupid.” Henry heaved a sigh at her. “Why can’t you believe that anyone would love you?”

“Because of Cora.” Regina shrugged one shoulder. “That’s how powerful she is, Henry.”

“Well, she can’t beat all of us.” Henry folded his arms over his chest with a thump and went pale.

Regina narrowed her eyes and set her cup aside.

“I mean it,” Henry’s voice cracked a little, “no more hurting yourself. You _promised._ ”

“Didn’t you promise me that you wouldn’t try any magic yourself?” Regina suddenly looked angry. “Was that not the deal?”

“I don’t…”

Regina reached out, gripping Henry by the wrist and pulling his arm straight. He cried out in pain and it went through her like a knife.

“Regina!” David’s hand landed on her shoulder and it tightened when she gripped Henry’s sleeve, hauling it back to show the skin marbled with burns underneath.

“Idiot boy.” All the air rushed from Regina’s lungs when she saw the damage. The damage that Henry had desperately tried to heal himself so none of them would know. “What have you done?!”

“It’s fine.” Henry tried to pull his arm away but she was far stronger than he and doing nothing to hide it.

“Henry, you’ve been _cooked_!” Regina yelled at him again. “Down to the BONE. You’re lucky you can still even move your arm!”

“I had to!” Henry succeeded in wrenching his arm away and tucking it close to his body. “I’m the only one that can reach them. We need to try again today. I didn’t get the chance before. Aurora got pulled away.”

Regina twisted to look up at David and he held up his hands.

“I had no idea. Well, I knew about Aurora being pulled out of there but…Henry, you’re burned. Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Because I’m the only one that can do this!” Henry got that mulish look on his face and clutched his arm close when Regina reached for it again.

“Enough!” She snapped at him, so angry that her eyes were sparking purple. “I’m going to fix what you’ve done to yourself and then we’re going to find another way.”

“There is no other way and you know it!” Henry’s strength was no match for hers and it was either let her see his arm or break it before she got to look at it anyway.

“There is always another way.” Regina growled and grimaced when she shimmered magic over his arm, trying to figure out what he had done to himself. The damage was extensive, but she had gotten to it in time. She could halt the infection before it spread, heal the tissues.

“We don’t have time.” Henry grimaced when the horrendous pins and needles of magical healing lanced him and made his arm spasm in his mother’s hold. “I can do this.”

“Never again.” Regina’s tone brooked no argument. No wiggle room at all.

“But…”

“No.” Regina didn’t even bother to look at him. She might have changed in the last few weeks but –once her mind was made up- it still might as well be set in stone.

“No one else can talk to them!”

“Actually…I’ve been thinking about that.”

“Hmm?” Regina didn’t look up from focussing on Henry’s arm but at least part of her attention was on what David was saying.

“Snow’s been under the sleeping curse, she suffered from nightmares for years afterwards, she could get to the Red Room, I know she could.”

Regina frowned but didn’t stop healing Henry.

“Put me under the sleeping curse.” David rounded the bed so he could see Regina’s face. She frowned but still didn’t look up. “Curse me and I can find the Red Room and her. She can break it with True Love’s Kiss.”

“No!” Henry twisted to look up at him. “That’s crazy! You don’t know she’ll be there!”

“Yes, I do.” David dismissed Henry’s protests and looked back at Regina. “Can you do it?”

Regina remained silent, healing Henry’s arm, the effort so fierce that sweat was inching down the back of her neck. She didn’t reply until long moments later. Her jaw rocked to the side and she looked up at him.

“Yes.”

“NO!” Henry launched himself at her, shoving at her shoulders and she rocked back but otherwise did nothing under the face of his temper. “You’re not her! You promised! I HATE her!”

Regina flinched at that but gripped Henry by the arms and set him back onto the bed when he nearly overbalanced and toppled right off the bed.

“No!” He twisted like a cat out of her hold and shoved at her again. “You promised that you wouldn’t be evil again! You promised you’d just use magic for good! No more curses!”

“Henry!” David was shocked at the venom the boy could summon at will. He was definitely Regina’s son.

“No!” Henry snarled at David too. “Why won’t you believe me?! I can do this! My mom’s gonna disappear! She’s gonna go evil again and _you’re_ helping it happen!”

“I will do whatever I have to in order to keep you safe.” Regina’s voice was cool and remote. Distancing herself from the hurt Henry dealt her. She stood and turned to look at David. “Get him dressed and bring him to Gold’s. He should have everything I need for the curse.”

David nodded and Regina closed her eyes when Henry started screaming again. She shook her head sharply, turning away from them both and made for the door. It was an act of will not to give in, to go to him and promise she would do whatever it took to make him happy, but she was his mother and she would do what she had to in order to keep him safe.

She would do whatever it took to keep _all_ of them safe.

Regina stepped out of the apartment, heading for the stairs, still able to hear Henry’s yelling. She felt her rise. Felt the Evil Queen undulate up out of the deep dark parts of herself and stretch under her skin, waiting to be freed, waiting for her chance to come out screaming.

Regina smirked and –within the confines of her mind- reached out and snapped a collar around the bitch’s neck.

She felt that part of her shriek, felt her twist and fight it but Regina ruthlessly hauled her to heel and harnessed that horror of ferocity that was her baser self. She cinched the collar tight and brought her under an iron control.

Regina was done with being used. By her mother, by Rumple, by the Evil Queen, she was _done_.

Regina’s smirk grew into a smile and she summoned her magic, teleporting between one step and the next, opening the door to Rumple’s shop whilst still shaking the purple smoke from about herself.

Regina was going to do whatever it took, she had made her peace with that, but it was going to be _her_ doing it.

Cora had no idea what she had unleashed.

Not yet anyway.

 


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SLEEPING CURSES ABOUND!

**Chapter 31 – Miscommunication is Key**

 

**_Gold’s Shop_ **

 

“A spinning wheel? Seriously?” David looked at the antique sitting in front of him and lowered himself onto the cot.

“Some things have to be done traditionally.” Gold said mildly.

He had been watching this entire affair with interest.

Mostly because of Regina.

She was different. Something about her was new. Changed. She held herself with a different air. Not the same kind of barely constrained mania she’d had as queen, but something altogether more self-possessed.

She had whipped up the sleeping curse in record time but she always had been an apt student. He supposed it was just as well that Cora had lain down such excellent groundwork for tethering Regina to her own fractured psyche. Had she grown up with Cora’s same thirst for power, for her insatiable confidence…well, Gold was lucky she hadn’t.

“You’re sure about this?” Regina spoke to David. Her arms folded over her chest, rocking back and forth as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her face was tight but not quite frowning. She knew Henry was watching her and she didn’t want him to take her nerves as a sign of duplicity on her part.

He was already on edge about the whole curse thing as it was.

She’d been confident when she’d left him this morning that the sleeping curse was the best way to get a message to Snow and Emma but –the longer she had spent preparing the curse- the more she had begun to question the wisdom of it. Surely there was another way? Surely they could do _something_ other than put somebody under a curse that could so easily go so horribly wrong.

She was confident in her abilities with the curse, it wasn’t her first rodeo when it came to that, but there were so many other factors to consider as well. David might be willing to put his faith in her, in Snow, in himself, but Regina lived in a little place she liked to call the Real World. A place where bad shit had a nasty habit of happening to folks like her.

“It’s the only way to keep Henry safe and talk to Snow and Emma in the Enchanted Forest.” David looked up at her and settled his hand on her elbow when she just gave him a dark look that told him she thought he was an idiot. “I know she’ll be there. She’ll break my curse just like I broke hers.”

Regina restrained herself from an eye roll that very well might have turned them right out of her head.

“We haven’t exhausted all other options yet.” Regina tried again. “I could…”

“Regina, if you knew of something other than this to do that didn’t run a risk of blowing yourself or everyone else up, you’d have done it by now.” David reached out and took her elbow in his hand, tugging her down onto the cot to sit next to him. “Stop worrying. Have a little faith.”

Regina snorted then and definitely rolled her eyes.

“Alright, the big bad queen doesn’t want to admit she’s worried about Prince Charming.” David grinned at her.

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Regina dismissed it smoothly. “Magic is strange here and I’m still adjusting. That, and I don’t want Henry to think that I went out of my way to kill you.” Regina offered a wan smile to her son.

“Are you?” Henry looked up from The Storybook at the mention of his name. His face stoney. She still wasn’t forgiven then.

“No.” Regina heaved an affected sigh to try and cover the very real hurt that stabbed her at his rejection. “It’s step four of my Villains Anonymous program; Don’t Kill Idiots That Deserve It _._ ”

David grinned and she smiled nervously in return.

She didn’t know why she was so keen on stalling him. She just didn’t want him to go under the sleeping curse. She had inflicted it on Snow without a second’s hesitation and would gladly subject the little poppet to it once more without batting an eyelid but David…was her friend.

Regina realised why she felt like she had chronic indigestion. She _cared_ about him. She cared that he might get stuck in the ‘Red Room’ if –as Rumple put it- Twoo Wuv didn’t save the day.

Regina was powerful, terrifyingly so now that she’d recovered from the death curse, but casting a curse was a one way trip for the practitioner involved. She couldn’t break it, not even if she wanted to. Rumple might, if he was willing to stake _all_ of his power on it, but there was no guarantee.  

David would be defenceless in there. She didn’t know, but she suspected that someone with magic might have a slightly better time of it. Perhaps be able to ground themselves against the never ending reel of regrets due to their greater mental discipline that had to be built up in order to –say- hold fire in the palm of your hand without setting anything important alight. Like your hair.

Regina pressed her palms together and then squeezed her hands between her knees.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” David squeezed Regina’s shoulder.

Regina didn’t respond, not even with a weak grin to make him feel better. She was struck again that it should be someone like her doing this. Someone expendable.

In the grand scheme of things, Regina being taken out of commission for a time wouldn’t affect the day to day running of the town. David was effectively Sheriff and Mayor in one, who was supposed to look after the town whilst he was snoozing his way to Snow White? She would be next in line, as his deputy, but that wouldn’t go down well with the locals to put it mildly. She’d have to resort to force to maintain order and she couldn’t imagine the aggravation that would gain her.

Actually she could, which was why she was so keen not to do it.

No. Better for all concerned if David got his ass back to the world of the waking toot sweet.

Not to mention the fact that all of this was built on ‘faith’ and far too few things that could be predicted to a degree of certainty. Snow was going to be there because he ‘felt it’. Preposterous. There were a billion and one other things that Snow might think to do instead of trying to make her way into that dark dank place in her subconscious where her demons slept.

Regina hoped that one of those things might be shooting Cora in someplace sensitive and hopefully crippling.

No. Far too many things were riding on the fact that Prince Charming and Snow White would Find Each Other. Regina knew better than to doubt the veracity of their love for one another, but she also knew her mother and how dangerous the deep dark parts of the Enchanted Forest were to two women hunted by a witch of questionable morality. Regina had made a career of making sure the forest would be so unwelcoming after all.

“Right, here goes nothing.” David grinned at her and Henry, at least he had the smarts to look nervous, and reached out to the needle.

Regina’s eyes widened and several things occurred to her at once; Snow wasn’t here, there was no guarantee that Twoo Wuv’s Kiss would work in spirit and not flesh; David didn’t have the mental discipline to keep him grounded against a lifetime of regrets –his nobility would work against him on this one, he’d be crushed by every one of them- and the town needed him here, showing his face, running the place.

On the flip side; Regina’s true love was right here in Storybrooke and they had already proved that their kiss could defy curses, Regina had spent decades hiding who she really was and not murdering people just because they irritated her which showed remarkable discipline she thought and Regina was no longer the Mayor and nobody needed her here.

Even Henry would be looked after by David and Ruby.

Regina gasped at the sharp pain in her finger and glanced down at her hand. She blinked when she saw her finger impaled on the spinning needle, pushed onto it by David’s outstretched hand. She pried it off, measuring the path of the curse racing up her arm towards her heart. Too strong, too fast.

Damn it, she was stronger now, anything she did would be more potent for it. _That_ was what had been niggling at her. _This_ version of the curse might very well be fatal.

The spells lain into her bones snapped into wakefulness, automatic defences against the unauthorised magic moving through her body. Slowing it, stripping it of power, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

“Regina!” David seized her shoulders in a tight grip when she began to fold in on herself. “Damn it, Regina. Why would you do that?”

Regina opened her mouth to explain, her head already drooping, but felt like her tongue was a very long way away.

Wasn’t it obvious? She was the best choice for this.

“Better,” she gasped, “this way.”

“Mom!” Henry appeared, floating over her, oh, that was right. She was lying down now.

 Regina frowned as she began to tremble, the magic in her body fighting viciously against the invading curse much in the same way her immune system would ward off infection.

Unfortunately for her, this curse was the equivalent of the Ebola virus.

“Mom, this isn’t better! You promised to be good. You can’t do that if you leave me!” Henry could feel it, something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. His mom had gone so pale, her lips looked blue, her eyes beginning to go grey. “Come back, mom, come back!” Henry shook her.

Regina rallied herself to comfort her son.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Henry. I’ll come back to you as quickly as I can.” Regina tripped over every single word, but she managed to slur something like that.

Then she surrendered to the grip of the curse, sinking beneath the magic and lolling insensate on the narrow cot in the back of Gold’s shop.

 

**_Across Town, the Mayoral Manor…_ **

 

Daniel jolted awake and sat up all in one move, looking wildly about himself.

What the hell had that been?

Daniel scrubbed a hand over his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and groaned softly. It had been a hell of a night and he was dealing with all kinds of new bruises on top of the post transformation aches that he was unfortunately becoming quite familiar with. Being turned inside out so his alter ego could get out and about wasn’t exactly a picnic.

He rubbed at the scar on his chest, it throbbed at him but he put it down to a Hyde related hangover, before he tried to get his feet under him.

That was when he noticed the rest of the room.

“Shiiiiiiiit.” Daniel winced at the destruction of the once pristine manor.

The marble floor in the hallway was cracked, littered with the remains of the chains that Hyde had thrown off the night before. Great gouging warpings of the stone where Regina had tried to sink him into it like a bog. The wallpaper was torn, the carpet shredded, scorched handprints burned the rug, the chandelier had been torn down out of the ceiling, the curtains were simply gone from one half of the window and still smouldering on the other side and the couch that he lay on had definitely seen better days.

Rather, the ruin that had been formerly known as the couch.

Daniel winced to his feet, picking his way carefully from the rubble and glancing about the room. He catalogued the damage to himself next and it was with a mixture of pride and surprise that he saw how much damage he had taken. How much she had hurt him.

More scorched handprints were clutched over his shoulders and arms, deep scratches kept a tally over his back, bites bruised his neck, shoulders and chest, more scratches ran the length of his thighs and his lip felt swollen from where she had savaged it with her sharpened teeth.

Daniel took in the damage, all of it, and weighed it up against what it had gained him.

Battered, bruised, bloodied, he’d had to hand over the control of his very body to a monster to get her to do it but…she’d let go. She’d finally been her whole self and he’d had no idea –up until now- exactly how much she had held back.

Every single time.

Every touch, every kiss, every caress, every smile, every joke, she’d censored herself. She’d held herself back, terrified of what he might see and all he could muster at having finally seen all of her was…

“Wow.” Daniel croaked and then gusted a hoarse laugh at the ravaging even his voice had taken.

She wasn’t here.

Daniel rubbed at his scar, ignoring the subtle green glow from within it, and frowned at that thought. He didn’t know how he knew, he just knew that she wasn’t there in the manor with him.

She’d have run, of course, the only thing that scared her more than herself was him after all. The question was; where was she now?

Daniel headed for the stairs, wincing at the tug and pull of ill-used muscles, and dragged himself up them.

She have gone to someplace where she felt she could lick her wounds and quietly implode about what she thought she’d done.

She thought she’d betrayed him, she thought she’d –how did they call it here- cheated on him with Hyde. He had to get to her before she could completely terrorise herself beyond all sense and make her see.

He’d been in control last night. He’d let Hyde out, let him talk, let him seduce. He’d been the one to tell Hyde how to get through to her. How to –hopefully- make her see that it was him inside the monster, that he was right there with her.

Daniel had never truly given up control, not really, it was his body and everything Hyde had done to Regina –and everything she’d done to him- had been entirely with his permission.

At first he had been terrified, absolutely frozen with fear that he’d hurt her. That he wouldn’t be able hold Hyde back but –as it had gone on- as Hyde had told her with words that Daniel could never summon, he’d realised that he hadn’t lost anything. Hyde was telling the truth. They were one and the same and neither of them were foolish enough to fight a losing war against themselves.

“Glad to see you finally caught on.”

Daniel skidded to a halt and backed up, looking into one of the many mirrors hanging in the house.

Hyde lounged against the frame on the inside, looking more bloodied and bruised than even Daniel did, but completely satisfied in himself as well. He held out his hands, silvery claws shining in the light through the window.

“See? I’m not ALL bad.”

“Don’t get used to it.” Daniel warned him. “I won’t be making a habit of it.”

“She might.” Hyde grinned.

“You wish. She’s far too terrified of everything right now to even consider fucking you again. It will take some convincing to make her believe that this was my choice.”

“Our choice.”

“Yes, because _that_ will comfort her greatly.”

Hyde scowled and leaned heavier against the frame. Daniel frowned at him.

“What’s wrong?”

“I do not know.” Hyde rubbed at his scar and it was then that Daniel noticed it was bleeding. He stared at the lurid red blood seeping from behind silver staples. “Something stirs in me. Something not my own making.”

“Magic?”

“I fear it must be so.” Hyde grimaced and huffed out a slow and pained breath.

“Why can’t I feel it?”

“I gave my word, did I not?” Hyde bared his teeth in something like a pained smile. “I would take your ills, I would be your armour so you might withstand her, I told her I would be your immune system. I may be a monster, but I am not a liar. She is so good at it herself that she expects it of everyone and you do because she does. I have never lied to her. Not once. Nor you, incidentally.”

Hyde let out a slow breath and rested his head against the mirror from the other side. Blood continued to drip from the scar, tracking down over the monster’s naked skin and Daniel could –bizarrely- hear it pattering onto the floor.

Daniel shifted uneasily, getting a very bad feeling.

“That can’t be healthy.”

“Not for I, no.” Hyde gave a wet chuckle. “I will adapt. The sensation is new, unfamiliar, I must allow it to run its course so that I may guard against it in future.”

“Wait, you can…” Daniel frowned. “You can stop it and you’re letting it continue because you’re _curious?”_

“I am a scientist.” Hyde moved in the mirror, staggering over to the reflected wall behind Daniel and propping himself up there. He did look to be in a great deal of pain. It would seem that the opposition between Regina’s magic and Hyde’s science didn’t always come out in the monster’s favour.

“You’ll get killed doing stuff like that!”

“Fear not, boy, I know my limits. My strength is at an ebb due to the little queen’s affections, but I am not so easily dispatched. You shall not be stolen away from her through any doing of mine.” Hyde plucked at the staples on his chest, one by one, and opened them like the buttons of a coat.

Daniel watched in horror whilst the monster peeled his chest open like a jacket and looked inside. He reached in, sweating with the agony he was in but otherwise making no sign of discomfort, and wrapped a clawed hand around his gigantic heart.

He pulled it, lurid black and red, thumping with life, from within his chest cavity and studied it. Blood vessels, pulsing quivering like the ebony pipes of some great machine, tethered it to his body still but he turned it this way and that, studying it intently.

“It glows.” His voice was flat.

“Yes, it’s an enchanted heart, they do that.”

“It did not glow before. It was coal black.” Hyde looked at Daniel accusingly. “What have you done to me?”

“Me?” Daniel pointed to himself. “I’m not the one rummaging through their own thoracic cavity!”

“Since when did you know such sizeable words?” Hyde replaced his heart and sealed the stapled wound closed again.

“I may not be an evil genius, but I’m not an idiot.” Daniel folded his arms over his chest and Hyde watched him for a long moment.

“We are bleeding together. Merging.”

Daniel blinked, suddenly going very still.

“What does that mean?”

“I do not know.” Hyde tilted his head and shook it off. “Go. Find our queen. I shall ponder this…new circumstance we find ourselves in.”

“Did you notice when she left?”

Hyde was so distracted by this latest conundrum that he didn’t even nettle Daniel about having to do everything himself. He shrugged a huge shoulder.

“A little over three hours ago. I tried to rouse you but it would seem a great deal of damage still crosses the divide between our forms. I’ve been working on this also.”

Daniel arched a brow and Hyde scowled at him.

“Altruism is still not my strong suit, boy. You are my weakness. Injuries that I should survive may well kill you should I revert too quickly before I may heal. I have no desire to die off simply because your biology cannot withstand my revelries.”

“Nice.”

“Not something I am familiar with.” Hyde began to fade. “She will have gone to one of her family. Best you start looking there.”

Daniel rolled his eyes as the monster disappeared and pushed away from the wall to find himself some clothes.

He had to find Regina quickly.

Before she did something foolish.

 

**_Deep Inside the Curse_ **

 

Regina smacked into the marble floor of the dark hallways with a sickening crack. Fractures radiated out from the point of impact and she groaned.

“Ooowww,” Regina curled in on herself and wheezed, “I think I landed on my keys.”

After a moment’s recovery and convincing herself that this was all in her head, Regina grumbled her way to her feet. She dusted herself off and cast about, looking for a clue as to where she had to go.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be an alarming dearth of neon signage of ‘ _RED ROOM – THIS WAY!_ _à_ _’_.

That didn’t seem to be the only thing that was missing.

“I don’t believe for a second that my head is this empty.” Regina snapped and planted her hands on her hips. She looked about herself and took in the décor.

Dark corridors, mirrors, eerie echoes sounding vaguely like howling winds, flaming torches in wall sconces…throw in some Blackguards and a corset or two and it was just like home.

Something _scuttled_ behind her.

Regina whirled her hands lifting to defend herself, dropping into a ready crouch. She’d be damned if she was going to be harmed by figments of her own imagination.

Nothing.

No, that wasn’t true, there was something out there. In the dark lull between pools of flickering light given off by the torches…beady eyes. Regina arched a brow. It looked a bit small to be one of her biggest regrets.

The thing uncoiled. There was the sound of something dragging over the stone floor. Several somethings. More beady white eyes opened, far too close to the first set to be on separate heads, and rose up…and up and up. Its silhouette blocked out the light from the next torches along and Regina’s chin lifted when she saw a glisten of porous mucus slicked skin.

Her own skin crawled when she saw it. It looked like slug skin, or the raw liver look of leeches. She _despised_ leeches.

There was a moan behind her and Regina spun almost against her will to see what had issued it. It had been a cadaverous moan, the sound made by air wheezing out of the lungs of a body freshly dead.

A sickly grey hand slithered out of the shadows behind her and into the torchlight. The sound of wet decomposing flesh being dragged over the stone with a faint squeaking sound told her that she very much didn’t want to see what the rest of the body looked like.

Regina felt the fear pound in her head. Necromancy and leeches, two of the things she hated most and there would be others. Lots of others. Regina had no shortage of things she hated or regretted.

Reflections that shouldn’t be there, flickered in the mirrors. Horrifying faces, foes long since dead, people she’d killed for no good reason other than she’d been of a mind to. Senseless deaths.

Another groan joined the first. The shambling gait of something that didn’t know how to walk properly inching its way towards her. There was a wet sucking sound, like a huge mouth with many teeth and dripping jaws was opening. Another leech beast with too many eyes reared up beside its brother and they began to close. The moans and the sucking shuddering breaths continuing, multiplying.

Regina tried to get her fear under control. There was nowhere to run, all paths were blocked, she had to think of a way out of this. She had something to do here, not just sightsee. Closing her eyes, Regina focussed on her heartbeat and her breathing, slowing them both and…nothing happened.

She wasn’t breathing. She didn’t have a heartbeat.

Far from the panic this should have evinced, Regina’s shoulders sagged in a sigh made with a conscious effort. She smiled.

Of course.

It wasn’t that this place wasn’t real, it was very real, but it was all in her head. This was her curse, made by herself, but it was supposed to last forever…none of these beasts, these regrets, could really harm her because to die would end the curse.

It was real and it wasn’t. Which meant…

Regina’s eyes snapped open and her hand lashed out. She caught something sinuous, strong and slippery in her grip. It squawked in alarm and surprise and she smirked. With an immovable strength, Regina dragged the thing down to her level. She didn’t pull it into the light because she didn’t really want to see it, but she did want it to pay attention.

“Here’s how it’s going to be,” Regina ignored the feel of cold slime inching over her fingers, “I’ve got something to do here and I don’t have time to wail and weep and writhe in the throes of my own damnation. Neither do I have the time to put up with your antics. You’re going to tell me how to get to the Red Room or –by all the curses as yet unwritten and pains not yet discovered- you will come to know that _I_ am not stuck here with you, _you_ are stuck here with me.”

The leech thing didn’t say anything, it lacked the mouth to do so, but it chittered to its fellows.

There was a chorus of groans in return and Regina arched a brow.

Hmm…

Lifting her hand, Regina snapped her fingers with a sound like a shotgun. Fire engulfed her hand and roiled into a sphere above it. It condensed, she pressurised it smaller and smaller, until a miniature sun hovered above her palm.

“I do hope nobody is thinking of doing anything stupid.” She mused seemingly to herself. “I would _hate_ to lose my grip on such a powerful spell.”

More chitters, more groans. Finally, a consensus was reached.

Regina turned at a grating sound issuing behind her. She dropped her chokehold on the leech thing and flicked the slime from her fingers. In the well of darkness where the zombies shambled, a slab was prised out of the floor.

A burning red light and a surge of heat billowed up forcing her to shield her face with her hand. She dropped the miniature sun spell, it seemed a little pointless when she could just toss any one of the beasties down there first.

Stalking towards the hole in the floor, Regina looked into the room. Red was right. Red floor, red walls, red drapes…not to mention the crimson flames that leapt from every surface. Regina’s mouth twisted, this was not going to do her complexion any favours.

“I know that none of you are thinking of dropping that stone back in place when I go down there.” She spoke conversationally. “That would upset me.”

The creatures quailed back from her and she knew then that she’d have to hurry. These were just the neophytes. The smallest and weakest spirits locked within the curse. Their bigger and older relatives would be along later and then…then things might get _really_ interesting.

Still, Regina had plans to be kissed out of this long before then.

She hoped.

Sucking in a deep breath that wasn’t real, Regina stepped forward and dropped into the room.

 


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Red Room...little misleading. 
> 
> Holy Shit Everything's On Fire! Room, would perhaps be better.

**Chapter 32 – More Than Meets the Eye**

 

“Mom!” Henry shook Regina as she began to go limp.

“Mom, this isn’t better! You promised to be good. You can’t do that if you leave me!” Henry could feel it, something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. His mom had gone so pale, her lips looked blue, her eyes beginning to go grey. “Come back, mom, come back!” Henry shook her.

Regina’s head lolled and her eyes fluttered. Her hand grasped at the front of his sweater and she seemed to rally herself for a moment.

His heart leapt and he smiled, she was beating it, she was coming back!

“…nothing to…come back to…”

Henry’s face went slack with shock at the same time as her eyes rolled back in her head and she went completely limp in David’s arms.

Henry’s fingers slid from their grasping hold of the flannel shirt she wore and David gently laid her back on the cot.

Henry was staring down at his mom. A high pitched ringing was echoing in his head. She had just…she had just cursed herself. Why – _why_ \- would she do that?!

 Henry’s eyes burned and his fists white knuckled at his sides. His chest was heaving and anger coiled tight and vicious low in his gut. He rounded on David, this was their fault, stupid grownups. Why couldn’t they just have let him do it? He had the charm, it protected him from the nightmares. So his arm had gotten burned, at least he could still come back from that!

He was a knight wasn’t he? Knights protected princesses and queens and maidens and all that junk, didn’t they? Why couldn’t he have done it?

“What did she mean?” Henry didn’t realise he had his hands fisted in David’s shirt collar until the man was suddenly nose to nose with him. Henry didn’t even notice he was screaming. “What did she mean ‘there’s nothing to come back to’?!”

“Henry, calm down.” David reached up to Henry’s wrists and tried to remove the boy’s death grip from his flannels.

“DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!” Henry’s voice thundered, sounding a lot older, a lot bigger than he was. There was something sparking in his eyes. The torque felt hot on his neck. “I’ve been calm! I’m always calm! All calm seems to do is make people leave me!”

“Henry, this isn’t helping.” David’s eyes were wide. He had seen that look before, that unhinged aura of danger…he’d seen it in Regina. “She’s going to come back from this.”

“Not if she doesn’t want to!” Henry’s entire body moved when he shook David, trying to get through to him. “Not if she was lying. Not if she doesn’t think she’s good enough for me.” Why didn’t he get it? Why didn’t he understand?

“Henry, she doesn’t think…”

“I never told her!” Henry finally seemed to run out of steam, sagging against David, hiccoughing into his shirt. “I didn’t tell her she was good enough, more than good enough. I didn’t tell her I loved her. She thought I was mad at her. She thought…she thought I hated her…”

Then Henry completely broke down, collapsing into David’s arms and sobbing like the little boy everyone forgot he was. David shifted, pulling Henry up onto his knee and hugging him tightly. He rocked his grandson back and forth, not knowing what to do other than be there and be solid, be immovable.

Regina would have known. She’d have known exactly what to say, what to do.

It hit him then; how could they ever have presumed to think that they could just cut ties to her? Henry had realised, in a befuddled and adolescent way, that he couldn’t be without his mom just yet. He’d had Emma, David and Snow of course –heart and soul he’d had them- but Regina had always been there for him. He’d taken it for granted that she always would continue to be there…no matter how he treated her.

Every one of Henry’s hot tears dripping onto David’s shirt felt like a piece of the boy’s innocence bleeding out of him.

“Henry.”

David started when Gold’s voice spoke softly to the boy. He’d never heard that tone from the man. Never thought him capable of it.

“Henry.” Gold waited patiently for the boy to turn to him. He opened his hand when Henry finally did look up. Smearing his tears away with his sleeve. “Give me your hand.”

Henry hesitated but Gold didn’t move, just stayed as he was, kneeling on the floor. Henry realised dimly that it had to be painful on his foot. His leg that was crippled without magic. Gold’s face betrayed none of that, he just crouched there with his hand out to Henry.

Henry put his hand into Gold’s and leaned forward when Gold brought his hand over the cot, over Regina’s still body. His grip only tightened when Henry made a small sound of distress and tried to shy away, but even then it remained gentle.

 Henry was afraid, he knew if he touched her, then it was real. He didn’t want it to be real. He was still hoping this was really a nightmare.

Gold tugged Henry’s hand down to his mother’s neck, manipulating his fingers to press into the side of her throat. Her skin was warm, not as warm as it should have been, but not cold and dead either.

Henry flinched when something moved under his fingers.

Was that…?

There it was again!

“She’s not dead.” Gold spoke to Henry in a low tone. “That’s her pulse. Her heart is still beating and she’s still breathing. It’s very, very, slow, but it’s all still happening. She can come back from this.”

“Even…even if she doesn’t want to?”

“Henry, I don’t know what your mother’s playing at, but I know she would never voluntarily leave you. When Regina loves she tends to…fixate.” Gold removed his hand from Henry’s.

It made his skin itch to touch Regina, unsettling scales he didn’t have anymore. It made him remember that she was a living, breathing, woman. Not a chess piece, not one of his collected trinkets, a woman. A woman he had broken, consciously and willingly. Eagerly even.

“But she said…”

“I know, but I think you also know that you have never seen the whole story when it comes to Regina. There is always more going on than there appears to be.”

Henry looked guilty for a moment and Gold found himself moving to reassure the boy again.

“This actually makes a great deal more sense than David undergoing the curse.” He said conversationally and leaned on his cane, rising to his feet. “It’s not exactly what I would have done but I do believe she’s come down with a bad case of morality. Terrible affliction.”

“What do you mean?” David demanded, finally rising to his feet when Henry clambered off his lap to sit at Regina’s side.

His hand was wrapped around her wrist, fingers measuring her pulse, while the other rested over her chest, feeling the thump of her heart and measuring the barely perceptible rise and fall as she breathed.

Gold watched as Prince Charming lifted the legs of the Evil Queen and gently –tenderly even- propped them up onto the cot, laying her out comfortably. It didn’t seem to matter to David that she wouldn’t be aware of it.

“Well,” Gold leaned on his cane, rotating it into the floorboards with a grating grinding sound, “she’s dispensable.”

“She is not!” Henry looked up at Gold hotly.

Gold raised his hand in surrender.

“I meant that she is not needed for the running of the town. She’s also a lot more familiar with curses and how they operate than you are. She’ll find Snow, if she’s there to find. Nobody knows the dark and twisted pathways of Regina’s soul better than she does. She is not only familiar with her regrets, she has cobbled them over herself like an armour at times.”

“But, everything she’s done…that weighs on her. I know it does.” David looked down at Regina, his expression pensive.

“True, but it always has. The thing that made Regina great, not just a good villain but a _great_ one, was that she knew what she was doing was wrong and she _did it anyway._ ” Gold continued when he saw David didn’t entirely understand. “Could you destroy yourself to achieve your goals?”

“I’d die to save Henry, Snow, my family. If I had to.” David shrugged his shoulders. There was no bravado to it, no posturing, it simply was.

“You misunderstand, dearie.” Gold almost wanted to giggle, but he smothered it. “That’s just your body, meat, I’m talking about your soul. Your principles, your morals, your _heart_. Heroes just die to get what they want. Villains? Villains damn themselves for it.”

“She’s not damned!” Henry came to Regina’s defence, misunderstanding what Gold was getting at.

“My point is that she is determined to see this through and I have yet to see Regina’s determination waver in the face of anything. You might have had true love on your side, but she’s got sheer bloody mindedness.” Gold lifted his cane and inspected the polished handle. “Which reminds me, the last part of her reasoning as to what makes her a much better candidate for this nonsense than you are; Daniel.”

David frowned and then his eyes widened.

And the penny…drops.

“That’s right, Daniels’s here. In Storybrooke.” David grinned suddenly and whooped. “Yes!”

“He can really bring her back?” Henry looked up at Gold. “Even if she doesn’t want to come back?”

“No.” Gold didn’t varnish it. “If she truly wants to stay cursed then she shall, but I cannot fathom a reason as to why she wouldn’t want to come back to her family.”

Henry brightened.

“David, we need to get everyone. Not just Daniel, but all mom’s family; me, you, Ruby, Granny and Rachel. If we bring everybody then she’ll have to come back.”

David didn’t think it worked that way but he wasn’t going to argue.

“Alright, let’s go.” David snatched up his jacket, glad more than anything that he could finally _do_ something other than fail.

“But…” Henry looked down at Regina and then back at David. “I don’t want to leave her again. I don’t want her to think I abandoned her.” 

David hesitated and cast a glance at Gold.

“I’m hardly likely to harm the boy or Regina. Not with two werewolves, a Prince, a zombie and a doctor of rather chilling skill ready to beat down my door in the event.” Gold told David blandly. “The boy is welcome to stay. Both he and his mother shall remain under my protection until you return from your daring do.”

It hit David then that they’d do exactly that should any harm come to Regina. Not because of promises, alliances or pacts, but because they didn’t want her hurt. They cared.

 Weeks ago, given the chance, most of them would have left her to die in a fire. Now though…now they’d come at anyone that harmed her with crocodile clips, a car battery and a can-do attitude. Guns and fire being optional.

“Alright, I’ll be back as quick as I can.” David finished shrugging on his coat and dug his keys out of his pocket. He turned to Henry and gave him a one armed hug. “Why don’t you read to her? It helped me when I was,” in the coma that she put me into because she couldn’t kill me, “asleep.”

“Okay.” Henry’s voice, usually confident, was small.

With one last squeeze to his shoulder, David disappeared out of the door to run to his car. Daniel would more than likely be at the Manor. Probably wondering where Regina was.

Henry sat on the side of the cot, watching his mom for long moments and finally leaned over to drag his rucksack closer.

“You wanna hear a story, mom?” He hauled The Storybook out of it and onto his lap. Flipping it open, he peeled the pages back and stilled when an illustration of the Evil Queen seemed to leap out of the page at him. Henry’s mouth pressed into a thin line and he slammed the book shut, shoving it from his lap and kicking it across the floor. He seethed a moment and then brightened his tone. For his mom. “How about a different story?”

Silence pounded out in the shop, not even filled by the sound of Regina’s breathing.

“I don’t know any other stories.” Henry murmured to himself. It occurred to him then that he had put far too much of his life into that book. He’d poured his heart and soul into it and…it wasn’t even the truth.

Some of it was. Bits and pieces, but there was so much more going on. So much he had missed because he had his nose buried in the book and not been paying attention to what was right in front of him.

Like his mom falling apart because she thought he hated her.

“Try this one.”

Henry jumped when Gold appeared at his side. He looked down at the book, taking it in his hands. It was heavy, the cover hardback and canvas. The pages were a thick velum, well thumbed, and it smelled of age. Of a book well used. The cover was black, the title white and a strange almost moon shape with an eye cut into it graced the cover.

“’Phantom’ by Susan Kay…the Phantom of the Opera?” Henry frowned and looked up at Gold. “I can’t sing.”

“This is the story behind the musical.” Gold tapped the cover of the book. “It is a first edition and signed. Incredibly valuable…but your mother read it so often that she has quite depreciated it.”

“This is my mom’s?” Henry ran his fingers over the cover with more care. “Why do you have it?”

“She…returned it to me. We had a falling out.”

She’d actually thrown it at his head so hard she’d given him a lump the size of a damn goose egg and a concussion. It was the first time she’d offensively used magic. Her power so violent –even untrained- that she’d torn clean through the weak shield he’d summoned to protect himself because she was _so_ much stronger than he had expected.

“You guys used to be friends?” The binding didn’t even creak when he opened the book.

“Allies is perhaps a better word for it. Needless to say, that is now only the case when the consequences are dire.” Gold gave a rueful smile.

“There’s so much I don’t know.” Henry murmured mostly to himself, slowly turning the pages to the first chapter. “What could make the Dark One be friends with the Evil Queen?”

Gold would have lied, for the truth would surely be worse, but Henry looked up at him and reminded him of another boy he had let down. He found himself unable to repeat past mistakes. How could he tell the boy he was –in great part- responsible for the ruination of the woman he loved as a mother?

“I helped her sleep.” Gold spoke without entirely meaning to and could have cursed himself when Henry frowned at him.

“Why did she need help sleeping? Was she sick?”

“Yes, Henry.” Gold looked sad then.

Henry’s frown deepened. Had he blinked he would have missed it, but something very like regret had washed over the Dark One’s face.

“She was quite the sickest person I have ever seen. Lesser women would have died from it.” Gold shook himself and forced himself into a brighter tone. “Well, I’m going to make some tea, would you like some?”

“I don’t think I like tea.” Henry shook his head.

“Ah,” Gold was caught wrong footed, he was ill equipped for hosting children. Very out of practice. “Still, I’m sure you can appreciate the biscuits that come with it. Read to your mother, lad. I’m sure Prince Charming will be back soon.”

Henry watched Gold leave and thought to himself that maybe the Evil Queen wasn’t the only one that The Storybook had neglected to tell the full tale of.

Henry turned his attention to the story of the Phantom of the Opera, sucked in a deep breath, and began to read.

“It was a breech birth; and so, right up until the very last moment of innocent ignorance, I remained aware of the midwife’s boisterous, bawdy encouragement…”

 

**_The Red Room_ **

****

Regina was beginning to get impatient.

There was no way to measure the passage of time inside the curse, but she was beginning to feel the strain from ignoring the flames, ignoring her body telling her that she should be parboiled by now. She shifted her weight and reminded herself that her mind made the matter where she was and the flames could go smoke themselves until she was done.

She swore, if Snow stood her up, she’d turn her into a lemming the next time she saw her.

It really was quite horrid in here. She’d have to compliment Maleficent on her handiwork if she ever saw the dragon again.

It was smoky, the air impossible to breathe if you fooled yourself into thinking you needed to. It was also incredibly hot, bright and all other lovely things associated with being trapped in a burning building. Having had that happen to her more than once (there hadn’t always been a Saviour there to haul her ass out of the frying pan either) Regina had no real desire to tarry here longer than she needed to.

If Snow would only _turn up._

Something wailed and Regina’s head snapped up to the square of light high above her.

The creatures –the weakened manifestations of her regrets- had abided by her wishes and hadn’t sealed her in. Unfortunately, that now meant she was trapped down here with no way to get out when the bigger and nastier things from her subconscious started to show themselves. Judging by the howling and wailing…they were winding themselves up for a full on assault.

“ _Regina?!”_

Regina whirled and smiled when she saw Snow. She checked herself of the expression immediately. Hopefully the little princess would think it was gas rather than relief at not being alone anymore.

“Ah, Snow, glad you decided to join me.” Regina snapped out her hand and buffeted back the flames with a conscious effort that took a lot more out of her than it should have.

The curse was adapting. She didn’t have much time.

“What are you doing here?!”

“It was too dangerous to send Henry. He was getting hurt.”

“But what are _you_ doing here?”

“Trying to have a conversation, now, will you listen for a…”

“But you’ll be trapped! There’s no-one to wake you from this.”

“There is, actually, but I need to…”

“Who? Who are you in love with?”

“Snow, FOCUS!” Regina’s patience was evaporating rapidly. “It doesn’t matter how or why I’m here, what matters is getting you and Emma back.”

Both women blinked at those words and the tone Regina had spoken them with. Regina cleared her throat and went on in a more civilised manner.

She quickly outlined the plan to Snow. Making sure she understood exactly what it was she had to do. Regina was increasingly aware that the heat was making her sweat. That shouldn’t be happening, but she was panting for air now too. She tried to remember that she didn’t really have a body but her body was too busy protesting its existence with extreme prejudice.

“Why are you doing this?”

“What?” Regina focussed on Snow when the younger woman interrupted her. Again.

“Why would you help us get back? I would have thought you’d want us gone.”

“Oh, I do.” Regina smiled tightly. “Henry, and David for that matter, are rather attached to you and they do nothing but nag me for your return.” Regina waved it away. “Besides, no one is getting to kill you and/or make you suffer a fate worse than death but _me_.” Regina jerked her thumb at her chest and grinned.

Snow just looked at her.

“Tough crowd.” Regina muttered and then straightened. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

“That’s it? I’m supposed to just leave you here?”

“It’s not like you can take me with you.” Regina shrugged a shoulder.

“You’re going to be alone here.”

A caterwauling shriek rang out from the halls above and Regina smiled.

“The local wildlife seems to disagree with you.”

“That’s even worse!”

“There’s nothing you can do, dear.” Regina raked her with a glance. “I would have thought the mere prospect of me being left in hell would make you positively giddy. A fitting punishment, no?”

“No!” Snow burst out. “I’m not like you!”

“Thank heavens, I don’t think any world could cope with two of me.” Regina smirked and Snow stomped her foot. Actually stomped her foot. How adorable.

“This is serious, you could die here!”

“No, I won’t.” Regina shook her head. “Mental trauma, maybe, psychosomatic burns, probably, a killer headache, definitely, but die? No. The curse is too well made for that.”

“That’s not comforting at all.”

“It’s not _you_ living through it.”

“I HAVE LIVED THROUGH IT!”

Regina rocked back on her heels. She recovered quickly.

“No need to shout.” She shooed Snow away with her hand. “Run along now, you’ve got portals to find.”

“But…”

“GO.” Regina spoke more forcefully. When Snow continued to look stricken she managed something of a softer tone. “I’ll be alright. Do you really believe I’d come here without an escape plan?”

“No.”

Regina smirked and tilted her head.

Then Snow was gone.

“That was almost rude.” Regina murmured to herself and winced when the flames roared higher.

The screaming overhead was reaching a fever pitch. Stalking over to the square of light that fell from the hole overhead, Regina peered up through the smoke to the ravening horde gathered there.

The leeches and zombies had given way to ghosts. They must have crawled out the mirrors and swarmed to her proximity.

Regina rocked her jaw to the side and narrowed her eyes. Well, as much of an oxymoron it seemed, the Red Room offered her a sanctuary. She doubted any of the beasties above wanted to come down to share the flaming crawlspace of the curse with her.

Still, she had time to spare, and she needed to come up with a plan to contain her mother.

She would bet, in theory, that the curse had latched onto the deepest, darkest parts of her subconscious. Rifling through her memories and finding all the ones connected to her pain centres…which meant there was bound to be a lot of stuff rattling around in there that she had forgotten or willed herself to forget.

Stuff she might be able to _use._

Regina frowned when she saw a familiar face that seemed more solid than the rest.

“Maleficent?”

“Gina, darling!” The blonde sorceress smiled down at her and gave her a jaunty wave. “Looks like I won.”

“Won?”

“Yes. I knew it was only a matter of time before one of us cursed the other. Looks like I came out on top.”

“About that…” Regina smirked and watched the horrified comprehension dawn across Maleficent’s face.

“No.” Maleficent’s eyes went wide with shock. “How?!”

“The Dark One’s curse to end all curses.” Regina held up her hands and shrugged.

 She needed to get the shade of Maleficent mad. Needed to get her closer.

If she was right, the apparition standing over her was a piece of the real Maleficent. Not all of her, but there was a component of every caster in all of their spells. The sleeping curse was Maleficent’s Big Spell, it was sure to have a rather sizeable piece of her. A projection of her. A fairly detailed one judging by how she had recognised Regina.

“You _cast_ it?!” Maleficent stared down at her, horrified. Well, her actual self hadn’t been that pleased at the prospect either. “How could you do that?!”

“With a great deal of pain and sacrifice, you can make almost anything happen.” Regina folded her arms over her chest and tried to look nonchalant.

“What…what happened to the rest of me?” Maleficent demanded. “What did your curse do to me?!”

“It damaged you.” Regina’s jaw clenched. One of her many regrets, it was probably what had attracted the projection of Maleficent out of the workings of the curse to appear in front of Regina. “Did something to your mind, got you stuck in your dragon form…you had to be contained.”

“You lobotomised me!”

“Not on purpose.”

“Oh, that makes it all better then!” Maleficent’s rage was so fierce that her staff began to glow and the other revenants cowered back a bit.

“I believe it can be repaired.”

“That’s why you’re here?” Maleficent rightfully sounded sceptical.

“No, I didn’t know there would be this much of you here to find.” Regina didn’t bother trying to lie, Maleficent would see through it anyway. “But I’m nothing if not an opportunist.”

“If you remove me, the curse will be destroyed and your brain along with it.”

“Come on, Maleficent,” Regina tilted her head in a reprimanding tone, “do you really think me so easily outdone?”

“The only thing that will break this curse is True Love and you don’t have that!”

“Don’t I?”

Maleficent narrowed her eyes and considered Regina.

Regina could feel her skin crisping. Dehydration clawed at her throat uncomfortably. She badly wanted to get out of there but she didn’t want to go empty handed either. Still, she waited Maleficent out patiently. Getting desperate would gain her nothing.

“You can really get me out? Put me back together?”

“I am certainly willing to try.”

“Just like that? For nothing?”

“Well, no, not for nothing…but you are my best friend. As close as either of us can be to having them at any rate.” That wasn’t strictly true for Regina anymore, she did have friends, tentative and new, but friends nonetheless.

“Really? You mean that?”

Regina softened when she saw the wary hope in Maleficent’s eyes. The want to be wanted and the terror that came with the prospect of it being a false hope.

“Really, Mal.” Regina spoke softly but she had no doubt the other sorceress heard her, even over the roaring of the flames. “I didn’t mean for what happened to you to happen. I want to fix it.”

“You’re lying.”

Regina sighed.

“It’s up to you, Mal.” Regina raised her hands. “Pretty soon, my True Love is going to turn up to rescue me and I’ll be pulled out of here…with or without you.”

The other apparitions began to wail and claw when they saw Maleficent wavering. She snarled at them, buffeting them back by her stronger magic.

She was a huge part of the curse. Regina had –at the time- had no idea why Maleficent had fought against her casting her own curse nearly thirty years ago. She’d thought it the ultimate hypocrisy for the dragon sorceress to preach caution when it came to curses, to tell her to let revenge go after her quest to end Aurora had been won…well, at the time that had been the case. Regina hadn’t known that, when Maleficent had been talking of holes torn in souls, she’d been speaking from experience.

It was a terrible wound to recover from. Worse than almost anything else…but Regina _did_ want to help Maleficent. If she could.

“Alright, I’ll hear what you have to say.”

Maleficent stooped low and lowered her staff into the hole above, extending it to Regina to grip. Regina wasted no time in closing both hands about the enchanted wood and gratefully let herself be pulled up and out into the cool dim of the corridor above. She coughed a few times, clearing the smoke from her lungs, eyeballed the creatures and ghosts milling around her and then turned back to Maleficent.

She grinned.

“It’s good to see you again, Mal.”

“I’d say the same, but I don’t really like you that much.” Despite her words, Maleficent leaned in and accepted Regina’s hug. “You stink.”

“Charming.” Regina laughed and settled back. “Speaking of which, he’s probably on his way with my cure even as we speak. Will you help me?”

“If you help me.”

“Tell me quickly then, how to bring you with me when I wake, and I’ll tell you what I want in return.”

Maleficent grinned a slow and nasty smile.

“Oh, Gina, you’re _not_ going to enjoy it.”       


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of people asked for more Gold in this story when I originally posted it. 
> 
> No idea why.

**Chapter 33 – A Plan is Hatched**

Daniel slowed his pace on arriving at Gold’s shop when he saw David.

He had checked everywhere he had thought Regina might hide.

David’s apartment had been first but it had been empty of the prince or Henry. He’d gone to the diner next but neither Granny nor Ruby had seen her. He’d even gone to the hospital to see Rachel and the doctor had told him that she hadn’t seen Regina since the day before. He’d tried the tree, the stables, everywhere he could think of bar this place.

Surely she wouldn’t come _here_ for comfort…but then, she was mired in about the imp more than was healthy and she still wasn’t normal, despite how much she had been trying to pretend. Daniel might know her better than anyone, but he doubted he’d ever be able to predict her with any certainty.

Not for a few decades yet at least.

Still, Daniel slowed to a wary prowl, none of that gave any clue as to why Charming was wearing a hole in the paving outside Rumple’s shop.

The prince was pacing back and forth in front of the store. His hand combing back through his hair, his movements short and impatient and worry etched into his face.

Daniel began to get a low and terrible feeling in his gut and he hurried to approach.

“David?”

“Daniel!” The other man whirled, relief evident on his face. “You’re here!”

“I’ve been looking for Regina.”

David opened his mouth to speak but was distracted by the arrival of the others he had summoned. A low slung red car pulled up and both Granny and Ruby piled out of it quick time.

Daniel frowned, he was beginning to get the impression that he had missed something.

“What’s…going on?” He looked between the three of them.

“You didn’t tell him?” Ruby looked over at David accusingly.

“And not have someone there to contain the fallout?”

Daniel frowned, the clenching in his gut getting worse.

“What’s going on? What’s happened?”

“It’s Regina.” David at least wasted no time once he felt he had sufficient backup to deal with Daniel. “We were working on the magic to contact Snow and Emma, a sleeping curse, I was going to take it and visit Snow, communicate with her that way.”

“But…?” Daniel had an awful idea he knew where this was going.

“She took it.” David glanced at Ruby and Granny as if asking for apology and then turned back to Daniel. “She cursed herself rather than me.”

**_WHAM!_ **

A bright white light flashed and David staggered back, his legs buckling and he landed on his ass with a grunt. God, his face hurt. It really hurt.

“What the hell does that mean?!” Daniel roared and was only stopped from pouncing on David by Ruby tackling him and hauling with every bit of her wolf strength. “You are supposed to protect her! You are the Sheriff, the knight of this fief, does she not deserve your protection for past crimes?!”

“Of course she does!” David shook his head to try and clear it and stopped when he realised he was making things worse for himself. “She’s my friend, my ally, she’s part of my family now. I want her cursed about as much as you do.”

“And yet you let it happen.” The words seethed from behind Daniel’s teeth and he didn’t seem to notice the dim light of the scar flaring under his shirt.

“I know.” David tried to get up but fell to the ground again. His ears were ringing. Damn, he’d taken hits from trolls and bounced back easier than this. “I know. I don’t know why she did it.”

“I know why she did it!” Daniel thundered, struggling mindlessly against Ruby who had both her arms hooked under his, hauling him back off balance, but she was losing her grip. Daniel was the determined sort. “She did it because she thinks she has to prove herself still. She wants to be good enough! What the hell have you been telling her that she thinks she has to prove herself?!”

“It can be fixed!” David held up his hands in surrender, finally managing to get his feet under him with Granny’s help. Blood streamed from his split lip. “You can wake her. You can bring her out of it.”

“How?” Daniel slackened a little but Ruby wasn’t fooled and she held him still.

“True Love’s Kiss.” David mopped at his face with the handkerchief that Granny handed him. It was soon sopping with blood. “You kiss her and she comes out of it.”

He croaked when Daniel suddenly had his hands around his throat and Ruby was the one on her butt on the floor.

“True love? TRUE LOVE?!” Daniel shook David. Hard. “A true love she won’t let herself feel. A true love she won’t allow herself to have. How can she love me if she’s spending so much time hurting herself? Why do you keep letting her hurt herself?!”

“Of course she loves you. Why do you think she’s acting so bat shit insane?” David’s throat was half a pound of pressure from being crushed like a tin can but he croaked the words out anyway. “She’s terrified of losing you. She loves you so much it makes her dumb.”

“ _IF SHE LOVES ME WHY DOES SHE KEEP RUNNING?!”_ The question was far too loud and too raw for David to hear comfortably.

David’s eyes widened when he saw the colour of Daniel’s. Green. Lurid cat green. His teeth were bared and there was suddenly too many of them. The torque at his neck was throbbing with golden light.

Hyde…Hyde was there too.

Daniel seemed to notice him at the same time David did and he hurled David away from him. David yelped as he was sent flying and Daniel roared.

His fists clenched in his hair and his eyes squeezed shut. He howled out his pain, his anger, giving it somewhere to go rather than into the waiting jaws of the monster under his skin. He staggered away from everyone, needing some distance and struggled madly against the siren song of Hyde in his head.

He wanted out, clawing at Daniel’s skin, tearing at his flesh from the inside. He wanted out. All of these idiots kept mistreating his little queen and he would _eat them_ for their shortcomings. How dare they allow her to hurt herself? How dare they?

The torque around Daniel’s neck began to burn, magic spilling from it in a lurid warning light. It constricted, no, Daniel got bigger, the rope of golden metal pressing in on him, threatening to choke him if the change went too far. The night before, they had both been in control, they had both wanted the same thing, but –when Daniel fought Hyde- things got crazy.

It was in Hyde’s nature to fight. Daniel pushed and Hyde pushed back. He couldn’t help himself.

If Daniel lost, they’d both be throttled by the torque. Not what Regina had wanted when she’d cinched the thing about his neck, but it was how it worked. She hadn’t been prepared for the eventuality of Daniel _helping_ Hyde at times.

Hyde knew how to get out, knew how it worked, the torque had to escalate to compensate.  

Daniel knew all this, no idea how, but he knew. Probably Hyde’s insane theorising even whilst he attempted to murder them both but it gave Daniel what he needed to throw up walls. The burning of the torque giving Hyde something else to fight and giving Daniel the chance to get rid of him.

He beat him back. Bludgeoned Hyde back into the pit from whence he had come and sagged to his knees on the ground. He panted, a cold sweat covering him, the road feeling alien and impossibly rough under his palms. Gods, he hurt all over.

“Easy, big guy.”

Daniel grunted in the back of his throat when a silken weight slithered over his shoulders and loosely around his neck. Rapunzel’s hair pulsed with a soothing magic and Daniel relaxed under it.

“You did good. You held him back.” Rachel continued in a low and soothing voice, rubbing between Daniel’s shoulder blades.

“I…is David alright?” Daniel’s voice was so hoarse it sounded more like a growl than anything else.

“Yeah…Ruby’s helping him down out of the tree.”

“Tree?”

“You threw him about thirty feet. Quite impressive really. The tree broke his fall. He looks fine.”

“I hurt him. His face.” Daniel was working very hard not to just lie down on the street and go to sleep.

Only the thought of Regina kept him from doing just that.

“A couple of scars will give him character. Here, boy.” Granny crouched down beside Daniel and offered him her hip flask. “Some of yer woman’s cider. Help ground ye a little I should think.”

“Thank you.” Daniel rocked back onto his heels and accepted the flask, drinking a generous pull from it.

Granny was right, the burn of the liquor, the scent and taste of apple reminding him of Regina. It all helped.

“So, at least now we know the fancy necklace works.”

“It does and it doesn’t.” Daniel sighed wearily. “It gives me time. To keep him back or let him out. Acts as a warning so he doesn’t catch me by surprise.”

He felt like he’d been trampled by a brewer’s cart and its team. Everything ached. The torque was still hot on his neck, the scar on his chest glowing through his clothes. Changing once was bad, twice in the last twelve hours was like getting worked over by a pack of trolls and –somehow- denying Hyde the opportunity to come out ached even more.  

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t get the streak for nothing.” Rachel smiled at him, she was spooling her hair back into the complex braid she’d tidied it up in. Nearly all of it gold aside from that one bronze streak that ran from her right temple all the way through.

“Will you help me stand?” Daniel didn’t think he could manage it himself.

“Every time, lad.” Granny and Rachel took an arm each and tugged him up to his feet. They helped him towards Gold’s shop and met David and Ruby by the door.

“You alright?”

“Should it not be me asking you that?” Daniel, slowly cooling off from his temper, winced at David’s appearance.

His lip was split, blood soaking his chin and spotting the collar of his shirt. He had a leaf or two caught in his hair and various scratches from his summit meeting with the tree. He’d start to bruise later.

“It’s fine.” David shook it off. “I’d be just as mad if it was Snow.” David reached over and opened the door. “Come on, let’s go wake up your True Love.”

         

**_Gold’s Shop…_ **

 

Regina awoke to the sensation of warm lips against her own. She felt the flush of magic roll over her, felt the sleeping curse torn apart by the shockwave of true love and opened her eyes when the sweet kiss ended.

She smiled, blinking at Daniel.

He looked equal parts livid and relieved. He sat up away from her and Regina decided to hell with it.

Sitting up just as quickly, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely. She felt Daniel stiffen for a second and then kissed her back with just as much passion. His arms slid around her waist, crushing her close and it wasn’t until there was some pointed coughing and even a prod to Regina’s shoulder that she pulled away.

Breathing hard, her nose resting against Daniel’s, she looked into his eyes and smiled.

She wasn’t even worried when they flashed green for an instant and his smile changed a fraction to something leering and terrifying.

So Hyde was glad she was back too. Whoopee.

Regina’s eyes widened and she suddenly bolted out of the bed, hurling herself across the room, her hand clapped over her mouth.

Granny, the fastest to recognise what was about to happen, snatched up the trashcan and held it out to her.

Regina wildly shook her head and seized a jar off the shelf, hauled off the lid, turfed the contents and then retched into it horribly. Magic, gleaming silvery magic with sparks of purple, coughed from her mouth, streamed from her eyes and leaked from her nose. It was awful, lasting only a few seconds but for that time she was blind, deaf, dumb and suffocating.

Regina caught herself against the table when it was over and blindly crammed the lid back onto the jar. She coughed a few times, working her mouth like a dog with a spoonful of peanut butter at the taste the magic had left on her tongue, and stuffed the jar into her pocket.

“Are ye alright, girl?” A tentative hand touched her shoulder and Regina lifted her head, still panting, and took in her surroundings. 

Gosh, it was crowded.

There was Henry, David, Granny, Ruby, Rachel and even Gold hovering in the back there.

They were all staring at her.

“If anyone says anything about him _finding_ me, I’ll slap the stupid out of them.” Regina spoke when it looked like no one was going to say anything.

“Mom!”

“Oof!” Regina was knocked backwards when Henry tackled her.

“Don’t ever do that again!” Henry’s arms tightened about her ribs until she worried about air and then he finally loosened his hold. “Why did you do that?!”

“I…it was the best option, Henry.” Regina smoothed his hair back and smiled at him. “I’m much better equipped than David to –well actually, I’m just better than David all round- but I have more mental discipline, know more about curses and…my true love is right here.” Regina lifted her head, her eyes naturally finding Daniel’s. She smiled and he returned it…and he was pissed as hell with her.

Her eyes skated away. Hmm. Looked like they were still going to have to deal with last night. Goodie.   

“I did it, by the way. If anyone cares.” Regina said to the room at large. “Snow knows the plan. They’re headed to your cell now.” She directed at Gold.

Henry backed off a little bit when she gently pushed him away and straightened away from the table. Raising her arms over her head, she stretched, working the kinks from her spine. She’d have much preferred that they had moved her to her own bed rather than the pointy springed cot in the back of Gold’s shop, but she supposed any sense _would_ go out the window without her there to organise them.

Still, with her arms over her head, she was completely unprepared for David tackling her next.

“You _idiot._ ” David engulfed her in his arms and lifted her up off the floor.

Regina squeaked, her hands slapping down onto his back when he squished her in a rib creaking embrace.

“Put me DOWN.” She resisted the urge to squirm, knowing he was a lot stronger than she was and it would only be undignified. She stumbled when he obeyed a lot quicker than she thought he would and he caught her by the shoulders, shaking her once.

“What were you thinking? It was supposed to be me. What if it had gone wrong? Magic’s weird here. What if it had turned against you?”

“All of those things could have happened to you.” Regina frowned at him. “I at least had by true love _here,_ in the flesh, to bring me back.”

“Glad I can be of some use.” Daniel approached her and she turned to look at him, unable to stop her smile. It faltered a little at his next words and the anger in his eyes. Not the terrible rage that brought out Hyde but the completely justifiable need to yell at her for scaring ten years off him. “We’re talking about this later.”

Regina’s eyes raked him.

“Promises, promises.”

“Hey, stop ogling, it’s my turn to yell at you.” David yanked her back around. “You don’t do this. Ever again. I have one job in this damn town and it’s make sure that people don’t get hurt. You took a stupid risk, Regina. One that wasn’t yours to take and I’m mad as hell at you for it.”

“Um…sorry?” Regina looked up at him, not sure what he wanted. This was becoming uncomfortable for her. She’d had no idea that people would get so _riled_ at her risking her neck.

It had made _perfect_ sense. She was the best candidate for the stupid plan. She’d been in minimal danger. She was the strongest one here. She knew all about curses, why all the yelling?

“Damn right you should be!” Ruby, apparently tapping in for said yelling, stepped forward and punched Regina on the arm. Hard.

“Ow! Unnf!” Regina was thudded into another hug. Seriously, normal people did this all the time? How did they not have internal bleeding?

“Listen, sister-by-another-mister, you’re a jackass.” Ruby grumbled at her and then shoved her away roughly. She was scowling at the floor. “You scared the crap out of us. We thought…”

“Thought what?” Regina rubbed at her arm. That was going to bruise. She yelped when a hand skelped over the back of her head.

“That you didn’t plan on coming back!” Granny planted her hands on her hips and Regina backed off hurriedly. She had no desire to take her chances in Granny’s arms. The wolf matriarch would snap her like a twig.

“People need to stop hitting me!” Regina rubbed at the back of her head. “I liked it much better when you just glared at me and made death threats.”

“Love hurts, huh?” Daniel’s hand rested over hers on the back of her head.

“I don’t understand.” Regina grumbled. “Why did you think I wouldn’t come back? Everything I love is here.”

Everyone looked at Daniel and Regina slowly turned. Daniel shifted his weight and cleared his throat.

“I freaked out a little bit.” Henry said and Regina turned to look down at him, a worried frown on her face. Henry hurried to defend himself. “Daniel freaked out too!”

“You did? He did?” 

“Big time.” Henry’s eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. “He punched David.” Henry pointed at his grandfather helpfully.

Regina frowned. Maybe it was the blow to the head but she was now really confused. She looked up at Daniel.

“You hit David?”

“Only once.”

“Then he threw him.” Henry supplied helpfully. “It was actually really cool. He landed in a tree.”

“No harm done.” David supplied, clapping his hand over Henry’s mouth.

“Daniel!” Regina threw up her hands.

“Oh no, you don’t get to be the mad one.” Daniel silenced her with a single raised finger. “I was told that the love of my life went and ate _another_ curse and…” Daniel pressed his lips together.

“And what?”

“And we’ll talk later.” Daniel spoke in such a way as to make that final but Regina had all the people skills of a porcupine with gout and opened her mouth to heckle him anyway.

“Mmm-mm-ffmf-mm-mmf.” Henry rolled his eyes when David didn’t remove his hand.

“Yuck! Henry, that’s disgusting.” David yanked his hand away and wiped it over his shirt.

“That’ll teach you.” Henry wiped the spit from around his mouth and spoke to his mom. “Can we all yell at you at the diner? I’m hungry.”

Regina smiled and held out her arm, impossibly glad when Henry immediately stepped under it and hugged her about the waist. Well, at least _somebody_ had forgiven her.

“Fine, a hiatus on the yelling, but we’re going to my house. I feel like I’ve been asleep for a year.” Regina rolled her shoulders. “I’d like to do something a little more active than sit in a booth.”

She and Henry moved for the door and Regina stalled when she didn’t hear a troop of footsteps behind her. She turned and looked at everyone who all stood there like bastards at a family reunion.

“Well?”

“We’re invited?” Ruby raised her brows. “After the inappropriate shows of affection and all?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been beaten by an angry mob.” Regina dismissed it blithely. When the continued to just look at her, some of them looking more uncomfortable, she sighed. “YES. You’re all invited. I am a wonderful cook and I promise not to poison anyone…well, maybe David.”

“Hey!”

Regina smirked and let Henry lead her out of the shop, this time everyone else following her.

It was a strange thing. They all chatted with each other, milling around her, reassuring themselves that she was fine. To say she was unaccustomed to people being close to her was an understatement and –if she was unused to acquaintances- then friends that were actually affectionate to her and worried when she put herself in danger were downright alien.

It still made her edgy, all these former enemies just as quickly becoming allies, but she found she…liked it and she didn’t fear it. She was wary, the constant reminder of what could happen if she was hurt again, the relapse that could now potentially be so much worse, still hung over her, but it didn’t rule her. She was in control of it. For the first time in, well, ever, she felt something like stable.

It was a lot easier when you had people to lean on.

Regina leaned into the kiss that Daniel pressed to her temple. He was still mad at her, and she was concerned that he had lost his temper at David. He could have easily killed the prince. She hadn’t taken the sleeping curse herself to save the man only to have Daniel crack his head open. They had plenty to talk about and plenty to work through but it no longer felt insurmountable.

The only shadow fell when she spotted someone sunk down into the seat of a vintage black pickup. Someone with a familiar crown of golden hair.

Of course, she had seen Rachel with the group when she had first awoken but now she was missing. 

“Henry, why don’t you take everyone along to the store and pick something for dessert?”

“Where are you going?” Henry’s hand tightened on hers when she moved to pull away.

“I’m just going to speak to Rachel. I’m sure she wants to punch me as well.” Regina smiled and smoothed his hair back. “I’ll be right along. I promise.”

“Okay.” Henry smiled and then turned to lead the group away.

Regina was surprised by a quick and searing kiss from Daniel and a warning look not to get embroiled in anymore dark curses without him there to supervise before he too followed Henry.

Regina watched her…family walk away and found herself smiling.

For the first time, seeing someone leave her, even for something as innocuous as going to the store, didn’t seem like abandonment.

Huh, maybe she was actually growing as a person.

Regina worked down a shudder. Hmm, probably best not to think about it. So long as she didn’t grow into something sickeningly sweet like Snow, she supposed her redemption could continue as it was.

She brought herself back to the matter at hand and turned, cautiously approaching the truck. She could just see the top of Rachel’s head inside, her hair gleaming in the falling light of evening. Regina could feel the magic of it even through the metal hull of the truck and she smiled. That girl would be one to be watched if she ever learned how to channel that energy.

Regina made a mental note to be her tutor should she ever take it into her head to do so. Better her than the alternatives.

She knocked gently on the window, not wanting to startle Rachel but succeeding in doing it anyway when she bolted upright and twisted to look at Regina.

Regina blinked when she saw, even through the greying of the tinted windows, that Rachel had been crying.

Regina frowned and rolled her finger, indicating Rachel should open the window.

Rachel hesitated a moment and Regina tilted her head and planted her hands on her hips. Really? They both knew she’d just peel the truck apart if Rachel tried to refuse her.

Rachel, smart cookie that she was, rolled the window all the way down.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Regina surprised even herself with how gentle her voice was. “Who’s upset you?”

Rachel looked away from her and heeled her hands over the tears on her cheeks. Regina tried for humour.

“Say the word, they can be disappeared. I might not be evil anymore, but I’m sure I can dredge up a favour from Rumple.”

“Don’t.” Rachel whispered. “Don’t joke about that.”

“Oh, Rachel, I don’t really mean it.” Regina reached over the window and gently unlocked the door. She eased it open. “Do you want to talk about it? I’m a very good listener.”

A skill she learned from getting people drunk on cider and waiting for them to spill their secrets but, hush, she wasn’t supposed to do that anymore.

When Rachel continued stubbornly not to look at her, Regina became truly concerned.

“Rapunzel, dear, are you hurt? Has something happened? What can I do to make it better?”

“Stop!”

Regina had been prepared for almost anything bar anger. She stumbled badly when Rachel shoved at her chest with both hands and staggered her back. Regina’s arms wind-milled wildly and she just managed to catch herself before she landed on her ass.

“This is horrible!” Rachel dropped down out of the truck and slammed the door shut behind her. “Now you even sound like her!”

“Her who?” Regina rubbed at her chest. “You know, contrary to popular belief, all the pain I dealt up until now was NOT a sign of affection. I will accept hearty handshakes just as easily as the next woman.”

“Don’t!” Rachel threw up her hands. “Don’t do that! Don’t be nice. Don’t act concerned. Stop _reminding_ me!”

“Reminding you of what?” Regina held up her hands in surrender when it looked like Rachel might start yelling again. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

“EVERYTHING!” Rachel’s tears began to fall again. “You’re too damn similar to her. You were evil, you took in a child that wasn’t your own, raised him to be good despite not really knowing how to do it yourself and he still loves you! Despite everything you’ve done, you have a son who loves you but you got _better_ for him. You changed.”

Rachel’s shoulders slumped and she whispered the next so quietly that Regina almost didn’t hear.

“You loved him enough to change. I didn’t realise until I saw you change that…it was all a lie. Gothel couldn’t have loved me, not really.”

“Rachel,” Regina’s heart went out to her and she cautiously approached the younger woman again, “I know that’s not true.”

“Why? Because I’m too _wholesome_ not to be loved?” Rachel spat the words out and sniffed. Scrubbing at her tears with her sleeve.

“Oh, absolutely, because I’m known for my love of sweet princesses.” Regina snorted. “I meant because –yes- I _am_ very similar to Gothel so I KNOW that if she hadn’t loved you, things would have turned out very differently.”

“How?” Rachel looked up at Regina, scared to hear the answer.

“You think all she wanted from you was your hair?” Regina reached out and tucked a golden strand back behind Rachel’s ear. The golden mass was silky soft and pulsed with magic.

“What else could she want aside from its magic? She would have died without it.”

“True, but living eternally, frozen, a fixed point compared to everyone else around you? It’s not as great as it sounds. It is _so_ lonely. Everyone else dies or grows jealous or afraid because they realise that they’re changing and you’re not. You start to distance yourself, start to hold back, before you know what’s happening, interacting with people physically pains you.” Regina ducked her head until Rachel looked at her.

“I saw paintings of you, daubed on the walls of your kingdom, you were an adorable baby. She’d have held you in her arms and she would have fallen helplessly in love.”

“There is no way you could possibly know that.” Rachel shook her head and turned away. Her eyes widened when Regina gripped her chin almost fiercely and turned her so they could look at one another.

“I know this because she actually took care of you.” Regina snapped. “She could have lived any life she wanted with you, kept you locked in a dungeon of a castle, in the basement of her home in the country, treated you no better than a dog. As a baby, you wouldn’t know any different. If she hadn’t taught you to read, write or even _speak_ you would have been forever in her thrall. There wouldn’t have been anything of you for Eugene to love.” Regina tapped her fingers against Rachel’s chest.

“Believe me, it is very easy to break someone to your will, especially if you’ve had years of experience. Gothel was older than even the Dark One, she’d have known exactly how to manipulate you into anything she pleased…but she chose to raise you as her daughter. A clever, confident, kind woman. It had to have hurt her, to lie to you every day. She’d have been terrified of you finding out the truth. Not just because it would shorten her life, but because you would never tell her that you loved her again and THAT…is a mother’s greatest fear.”

Rachel gulped hard and looked down at her toes and this time Regina let her. She didn’t even realise she was holding onto the girl’s hands until she felt Rachel’s fingers tighten on her own.

“I never did!” Rachel choked on the sob that tore from her throat and clapped her hand over her mouth. She was heartbroken. “She died before I could tell her! She died before I could forgive her! She never knew. She never really knew.”

“Of course she did.” Regina moved automatically in response to a child’s distress, never mind that the child in question was well into maturity, she was still someone’s baby. She tugged Rachel close and engulfed her in her arms.

“She thought I hated her!” Rapunzel grasped Regina’s shirt in her hands, fisting the material into rumpled bunches and sobbing into Regina’s shoulder.

“And that’s how she knew.” Regina stroked Rapunzel’s hair and shushed her gently. “Hate is actually very close to love. Ask Snow how she feels about me the next time you see her and you’ll get only a look of confusion in return. That’s not just because she’s an idiot, it’s because the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy. She knew. Of course she knew.”

Rapunzel’s only response was to cling tighter and cry harder.

Regina knew this had been a long time coming and had actually expected it a lot sooner. Gothel sure had done a number on the girl and Regina found herself hypocritically angry at Gothel for it. It had never been clearer to her how much damage she could have wrought in Henry’s life over her own stupidity and fear about the curse.

Regina stood patiently while Rapunzel clung to her and tried to rebuild herself. She didn’t really know how long it took, not as long as it had taken Regina certainly, but the girl finally drew back and –when she did- Rachel looked up at her.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Regina smiled at her and swept away the last of her tears, producing a handkerchief for the job in the nature of true mothers everywhere. She smoothed Rachel’s hair back and tilted her chin up so she had to look her in the eye. “I mean it. There is nothing to be sorry for.”

“I cried all over you. I’m supposed to be a doctor, you were my patient and –knowing you- probably will be again. It’s not like this will instil confidence.”

“Nonsense.” Regina tucked the handkerchief into Rachel’s hand, letting her keep it. “You are perhaps one of the few people I actually trust never to harm me. Is that not the basis of all healing?”

Rachel coughed a watery laugh.

“Besides, there is no one here to have seen and I will never tell.” Regina smiled at her. “There is no shame in leaning on someone when you need to. Take it from someone who learned the hard way.”

“You scared them, you know.”

“Oh, I have since been informed exactly how frightened they were.” Regina rubbed at the bruise on her arm from Ruby’s punch. “They are a frightfully tactile bunch.”

“Speaking of, you better get back to them before they form a search party.” Rachel managed a weak smile and turned back to her truck.

“Rapunzel.”

Rachel half turned and Regina smiled.

“Come to dinner.”

Rachel frowned.

“I’m cooking for everyone at my house. Go home, clean up, pick up that ridiculously photogenic husband of yours and bring a bottle of your choice.”

Rachel wavered and Regina made a production of rubbing the back of her head.

“Rachel, don’t leave me alone with them. If they get anymore affectionate I may need medical attention.”

Rachel laughed again and this time it sounded a little better. She nodded after a moment.

“Alright.”

“Good. I’ll see you later.” Regina watched Rachel get into her truck and waved as she drove off. She stood in the middle of the road, her hands clasped in front of her and then spoke to apparently no one.

“I know what you’re going to say.”

Rumplestiltskin dropped the veil and leaned on his cane. He tilted his head in silent question. Regina turned her head to look at him, her gaze raked him.

“You want to kill my mother.”

“She’s dangerous, Regina.”

“She’s not the only one.” Regina turned to square off to him.

“She’ll destroy everything you love if she gets through.”

“There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.” Regina agreed easily enough.

A flash of consternation and irritation flickered behind Rumple’s eyes but he grinned and showed off his gold tooth instead.

“Said the woman with a plan?”

“I had plenty of time to think in the Red Room before Daniel pulled me out.”

“Kept the ghosts at bay I assume?”

“Quite the opposite, some of them were very informative.” Regina smirked when he frowned for a second, confused. “There is a spell, a spell to contain Cora, one that cannot be escaped.”

“Any spell can be undone.” Rumple dismissed it.

“Of course, but this one must be undone by a true friend. Cora doesn’t have any friends. She’ll never break it.”

Rumple mulled that over, watching Regina from under hooded lashes. She was different. Confident. That madness that usually swam behind her eyes, a reflection of his own, was tempered. With a tap of his cane on the ground, Rumple cast a simple spell around them that would allow them to go unheard.

Paranoia was rarely without its uses. He had learned long ago never to underestimate Cora. No matter if she was worlds away.

“Do tell.”

Regina smirked and outlined her plan. Rumple stared at her the entire time, not blinking, a myriad of emotions flitting across his face. Confusion, shock, incredulity, consternation and finally anger.

Anger at her stupidity.

“That is madness!” He snarled at her. “It cannot be done.”

“Would I be telling you about it if it couldn’t?” Regina scowled at him. “I can do this. I’ll need you there to run interference but it CAN be done.”

“You overestimate even my powers, Regina.” Rumple loomed over his cane at her but –for the first time since he had known her- there wasn’t a trace of her cringing from him. He frowned. This confidence was as confusing as it was alarming. “The transportation alone…the power required is more than both you and I can muster alone.”

“I only need you as a second, as a failsafe.”

“Regina, you’d have to be a tempest to even consider…” The condescending smile slipped from Rumple’s face when she folded her arms over her chest and arched a brow at him.

“Take a good look.”

Rumple blinked and his eyes changed. Flickering to that ruddy orange of his golden skinned self. He looked her up and down and those same eyes widened.

“Empty _night_ , woman!” Rumple took a step back from her. “What did you do to yourself?”

“I fixed myself.” Regina levelled a satisfied look at him. “I was never made evil, you shattered me into it. I didn’t realise until recently why; had I come into my powers as a hale and healthy sorceress…you’d have never been able to turn me into your pet monster.”

“Regina, this is madness, you can’t control it!”

“No, _you_ can’t control me anymore!” Regina stepped forward and glared at him. “Never again, Rumple, never again. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

Rumple hissed out a breath from between his teeth and thumped his cane onto the ground. Not for magic this time, but to resist the urge to try and crack it over her head. ‘Try’ being the operative word.

“You could kill her, you know.” Rumple said to her. “You could kill all of them. Cora, Snow, Emma…all your problems would be solved in one fell swoop.”

“No.” Regina shook her head. “Don’t mistake me, I will outlive all of them and dance on their graves…but I will not be the one to put them there. Not for this. It’s going to take both of us. Together. Will you help?”

“If we fail…”

“We won’t.” Regina spoke with utter surety. “Both of us have far too much to fight for.”

“This is insane,” Rumple shook his head, “…aye, alright then.”

Regina grinned.

“Don’t look so smug, dearie, should I get the chance I’ll watch you burn.” He rapped his cane against the street and the spell snapped around them.

“Yes, wonderful, but –until then- I think I shall continue to be your equal.” She dipped in a mocking curtsey. “Goodnight, dear teacher. Give my regards to your heart.”

Regina straightened and started down the road in a carefree walk, lifting her hand to wave when Henry shouted to her. Surrounded by the family they had made.

Rumplestiltskin watched her go and arched a brow.

“Equal?” He mused quietly to himself. “Oh no, dearie, not my equal.”

He watched as Regina bent and said something to Henry –the only person she ever afforded such a respect to- and then straightened, falling into step with her little party.

“Yes, it looks like the student has long since surpassed the teacher.” Gold’s jaw clenched in a moment of unease and then he tried to assure himself that so long as he didn’t act against her, her promises would keep her from squashing him like a bug.

He hoped.

 


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooooh, I'm excited. 
> 
> Are you excited?

**Chapter 34 - Scars**

“You know, if you want to know my lasagne recipe, you’re going to have to learn how to sniff memories because I won’t give it up without a fight.” Regina looked back over her shoulder at Granny as she walked up the path to her front door, her hand clasped with Henry’s swinging at her side.

“I can sniff the lasagne well enough.” Granny told Regina archly and Regina just chuckled.

“Ah, but can you sniff the _amount_ of ingredients, the order they’re put together or what temperature to cook it at?” Regina grinned, showing all her teeth and Granny harrumphed.

Her good humour was deflated like a popped balloon when Henry squeezed her hand and spoke.

“Mom, what happened to the porch?”

“Hmm?” Regina turned to face what her son was pointing at and ground to a halt. “Oh.”

Ah, that was right, she had left the house in such a hurry that morning that she had neglected to repair any of the _extensive_ damage done by Hyde and herself the night prior.

As it was, the door frame was splintered, the marble pillars flanking the door itself were scratched and clawed and that was just the outer damage. Inside –if she recalled correctly- it looked like a damn tornado had hit.

“Did someone break in?” Henry looked up at her and Regina pasted on a smile.

“No.” She kept the smile on even though she had no idea where to go with the explanation that she was frantically trying to formulate in the face of her son’s slightly bemused smile. “I, uh, was…experimenting.”

Daniel coughed a snort behind her and she automatically jerked her elbow out and caught him in the ribs.

“It got out of control, I was –uh,” Regina huffed out a breath and then let her shoulders slump, “it’s all Daniel’s fault.”

“Hey!” Daniel protested and she looked down at Henry, ignoring her lover.

“It’s true. He trashed the house. The entire bottom floor –boom- destroyed.”

“Why’d you do that, Daniel?” Henry twisted to look at Daniel and Regina circled him, subtly steering him back towards Granny –who appeared to have the light of dawning comprehension in her eyes.

“I was helping your mother, _she_ started it.”

“ _I_ didn’t pull down the chandelier.” Regina propelled Henry towards David, hoping her banter would distract him.

“True, but you did tear up the rug by the fireplace. And set fire to the curtains. And break the couch.”

“Alright, you _definitely_ helped with the last one.” Regina spun to look up at Daniel. He was amused, somewhere deep down, but he mostly still looked pretty annoyed with her. The banter wasn’t entirely in jest.

“Children…” Granny looked between them and then pointedly at Henry, who still hadn’t really gotten an answer for his question.

“Were you guys fighting?”

“Some of it could appear that way, I’m sure.” Daniel answered Henry and Regina danced in front of him and addressed the entire group before her lover got her into a discussion she was definitely not ready to have with Henry yet.

“So!” She bared her teeth in a somewhat desperate smile. “Change of plans. Everyone’s a lit-tle bit out of sorts because of such a trying day so why don’t we all go our separate ways, get ready for the party and reconvene later?”

“I can help clean up.” Henry volunteered immediately and Regina looked down at him, that fixed smile still on her face.

“I know you could but you need toooooo…” She looked helplessly at David.

“You gotta help me carry all the stuff I’m gonna bring, buddy.” David clapped a hand on David’s shoulder and Henry quirked a brow up at him, knowing he was being played.

“Oh…kay.” He looked back to Regina. “Is there super-dangerous magic type stuff in there? Is that why you don’t want me going in?”

“Well, if there isn’t now there probably will be in a few minutes.” Regina grinned brightly, not deigning to clear up Henry’s confusion and then looked to the rest of them. “Seven?”

Granny rolled her eyes, David tried not to grin too wide and Ruby had her hand clapped over her nose and was alternately trying not to smell what had gone on the night prior or kill herself laughing.

“Seven is fine.” Granny answered for them and eyeballed both Regina and Daniel with a warning glare. “You had best be ready to receive guests or yer boy will go in looking for ye.”

“He’s industrious that way.” Regina nodded.

So they said their goodbyes, Henry hugged Regina and waved to Daniel, David laughed at them both and then it was just Regina and Daniel standing on the garden path.

Regina watched them go and only closed her eyes when Daniel’s heat, the thrum of his scar, pressed up against her back and his hands came down on her shoulders. She heard him open his mouth, a swift intake of breath to speak and she stalled it by lifting one hand and gripping his on her shoulder.

“Wait until we’re inside?”

He huffed out a sigh that ruffled her longer hair and she sensed his nod rather than saw it.

“Thank you.”

Daniel released her shoulders and she skirted him quickly, hopping up the front steps to stand in front of the door. It was a short burst of magic to repair the damage that Daniel’s tearing fingers had dug from the wood and paintwork, another errant thought to repair the marble pillars, then she sucked in a breath and opened the door.

Stepping over the threshold, Regina sucked in a breath of shock when her senses were overwhelmed by the crackle of magic and that alien scientific power that had given Daniel life again. It rolled over her like a wall of heat that raised goosebumps and made her skin prickle. The place also _reeked_ of sex. No wonder Ruby had been trying to stifle it, her nose was even keener than Granny’s after all.

“Oh…this looks a lot worse in the daylight.” Regina murmured and picked her way up the steps to the main hallway of the ground floor and let out a small sound of distress. “I _liked_ that vase.”

“You probably shouldn’t have kicked it over then.”

Regina stiffened when his voice rolled over her like another wave of ambient power. It was coming off both of them in streamers and waves. She was going to have to start laying wardstones just to ground it all.

Pressing her lips together, Regina turned slowly on her bare heel to look up at him. She studied his face and wanted desperately for things to be well between them. She blew out a breath and didn’t even know where to start.

“So…do you want to sweep or mop?”

_“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!”_

Regina actually hopped back a step when the words suddenly exploded from him in a cacophonous bellow.

“Another curse?!” Daniel threw his arm wide. “You went and ate ANOTHER curse?!”

“Well, ‘eat’ isn’t exactly accurate…”

“Why?!” Daniel strode towards her and seized her by the shoulders, looking deep into her eyes. “Why would you do that?”

“I…it made sense.”

“No it didn’t!” Daniel released her lest he give into the urge to shake her until she rattled. “David signed up for it. HE wanted to do it. Not you, no one ever thought that putting _you_ under a curse would be a good idea!”

“Well…I did.”

“And why is that?!” Daniel rounded on her again, seething. His voice was sarcastic but it couldn’t hide the hurt from her. “You’ve run from me before, but into your own curse? That’s a new one. I had no idea the thought of being stuck with Hyde as well as me was so repellent to you.”

“What?” Regina looked suddenly alarmed. “No! I wasn’t running from you.”

“You ran this morning!” Daniel thrust his pointed finger at the front door. “Didn’t even get dressed, just bolted. Running to David, talking to him instead of me.”

“I was scared!” The words ripped from her without her meaning them too and they just kept pouring. “And he doesn’t matter. Well, no, that’s not true. He does matter but not like you do.”

Regina seethed out a breath and tunnelled her fingers through her hair, trying to order her thoughts.

“Could have fooled me, because he’s always the one you run to. You don’t come to me, you go to him. I _know_ you don’t love him like you do me but…you certainly trust him more than you do me.”

Regina spun to look at him, frowning.

“What?!” She lifted her hands and shook her head. “How can you even say that?”

“Probably because of the mountain of evidence at my disposal.”

“Daniel, I can’t even trust David to be selfish enough to be smart. He was so convinced that Snow was there that he was willing to gamble _everything_ to see her again and I couldn’t let him do that.”

“So…you saved him from a nap at the cost of my feelings?” Daniel slapped his hands down onto his thighs and tilted his head at her.

“You’re being deliberately obtuse and it is _very_ unbecoming.” Regina folded her arms over her chest with a thump. “I do trust you. I trust you more than anyone else alive.”

“You certainly don’t seem to.”

“Daniel…I went under a sleeping curse, not even sure that it would be worth the pain it would bring me, because I _knew_ you would come for me.” Regina’s face softened a little and she took a hesitant step towards him.

“Was it a test?” Daniel didn’t step away from her, knowing that would hurt her too much, but he didn’t move towards her either and she certainly noticed that. “To see if I really did truly love you even after you and Hyde…fucked your way through the floor.”

“No.” Regina shook her head. “I thought you’d be mad at me over it, thought you would be hurt, that’s why I panicked this morning, why I ran. Empathy is something of a new skill for me, it took me a while to see it from your side but I never once thought that you didn’t love me.”

“So how long do I have to wait for you to see this from my side?” Daniel waved between them. “Because you scared me so damn much I’m finding it _really_ hard to find reasons to forgive you. How could you, Regina? How could you play with your life –with my life- like that? What do you think would happen to me if I lost you?”

“The same thing that happened to me.” Regina answered without hesitation. “I know that. Now. We’re…locked together, you and I. Two halves of the same whole.”

“Then why do this to me?”

“Because we were both strong enough to take it.” Regina offered a watery smile sneaking another step closer. “I knew you’d be mad as hell, I knew you’d be scared, I knew you’d want to bellow at me for doing it…but I knew I was strong enough to survive the curse because _you_ would be there to pull me out of it. We’re stronger together, Daniel. I know that now.”

“How long before you forget it?”

“Never.” She shook her head firmly and then heaved a sigh. “I can’t promise never to do it again –this kind of insanity has an alarming habit of happening around me and I’m always going to do what I think is right- but…I can definitely tell you that I will never do anything that would rob you of me.”

“Regina,” Daniel didn’t pull away when her fingers crept around his, “it was so dangerous. So many things could have gone wrong.”

“It was dangerous, I know, but I’m the Evil Queen, danger is something of a constant in my life and it forever will be.”

“You’re not just the Evil Queen anymore.” He reached up and tucked her hair back behind her ear, smirking at the length and the silky feel of it.

“Just as you are no longer just you.”

“Hyde.” Daniel’s voice was flat and she carefully nodded.

“There’s four of us in this relationship –as crazy as it is- and there always will be. Can you…accept that?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” Daniel squeezed her hand in his and looked into her eyes. His voice softened.

“He didn’t…hurt you?”

Something flickered deep in her gaze and he stiffened.

“Show me.”

“Daniel, it’s fine and it only happened because…”

“Show. Me.”

Regina pressed her lips together and sighed out through her nose.

“Fine, but it’s not pretty.” She warned him and her fingers went to the buttons of her coat. She shrugged it off and tossed it over the hallway table before undoing the buttons of her flannel shirt as well. Dropping the material, she turned to show him her back.

Daniel sucked in a harsh breath and let out a low growl that she couldn’t read the meaning of. She shivered a little when hot fingers trailed over her cool skin.

“How badly does it hurt?” Daniel snatched his hand away and Regina half turned to look at him.

“It doesn’t, your hand is warm, that’s all.”

“It looks so painful.” Daniel’s face was tight and worried. He looked furious. With himself. “I am so sorry, love. I thought I could control him.”

“You did a wonderful job.” Regina hurried to reassure him, ignoring how odd this entire conversation was. “He didn’t eat me, did he?”

“He’s branded you.”

“He’s a beast, he had to mark me as his.” Regina reached out and touched the faint glow of his Y-shaped scar that marked the bruising on her back. “As yours. He is you and you are him…right?”

Daniel let out a breath and stepped forward, cupping her face in his hands. He tilted her chin up to look him in the eye.

“You did not betray me. I was there the entire time.” He rubbed his thumbs against her temples and watched her for another long moment. “Do you trust me?”

Regina studied his eyes, drowning in the midnight blue for a moment, and reached up, gripping his wrists.

“Yes.” She spoke with certainty. “I trust you.”

He smiled, but he didn’t believe her. Her jaw tightened in consternation. How could she get him to believe her? She supposed she deserved it, she spent an inordinate amount of time running from him after all, but she DID trust him. She’d never have undergone the sleeping curse had she not had absolute faith in him. Not only that he needed her, loved her, but that he would _keep_ loving her and that he would be there when she got back. That he would bring her back.

How could she make him…Regina realised it then.

She wasn’t in charge, not of this. She couldn’t be in charge because they were equals and they wouldn’t be equals until…

“I’m sorry.” She stretched up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.

Daniel smiled against her mouth and leaned into the kiss. He didn’t hesitate a moment before dropping his hands to skim down her sides and settle at her waist. The power crackled between them. That crackling metallic science sparking against her tongue and her pluming sparkling magic gusting against his skin. They were thunderheads coming together to make a storm.

What beautiful lightning they made.

Powerful lightning. A power she could use.

Regina gripped his torque in both hands and yanked. The spell burned from her palms into the enchanted gold and the searing of colliding forces turned it red hot. It scorched her palms, causing her to scream into Daniel’s mouth at the pain but she had torn if from his neck before he could jerk back out of her reach.

The torque rang like a bell, bouncing steaming over the marble and Regina seethed out a hissing breath, cradling her burning hands close to her chest.

“Gods, Regina, will you stop?!” Daniel gripped her wrists looking down at the marks glowing brightly across her palms.

“I’m sorry. I’m fine.” She summoned a smile from somewhere and looked down at her palms, blowing on them softly. Magic plumed from her mouth and into her wounds at the same time as the spells lain into her bones flared to enhance the healing magic.

“You just set fire to yourself!”

“Fire does not burn me the same way it does others.” Regina finally looked up at him and turned her hands so he could see her palms. “See?”

Daniel frowned, reaching out to take her hands and cup them in his own. He ran the pads of his thumbs over the golden scarring across her hands. Chains. Chain links from the torque had been branded into her flesh seemingly leaving some of the metal and diamond dust embedded in her skin so that the scars glittered in the dim light coming from the window.

“Now that’s twice I’ve scarred you.”

“Nonsense.” Regina closed her fingers over his and waited until he looked up at her. “We all have our scars. A testament to the troubles we have lived through and survived.”

“Why did you take it off?”

“Because you’re Hyde and he’s you.” She shrugged a shoulder. “To yoke one would be to punish the other and whilst _I_ might have a taste for a little light bondage, I don’t think your enthusiasm for it matches mine.” She reached out and rubbed her hand over the scar glowing through his shirt. “I told you, I trust you. You don’t believe me, I think, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying. I won’t leave you. Never forever.”

“Promise?” He smiled uncertainly and she lifted her hands to show her chain scars again.

“I’m bound by these chains.” She grinned when he let out an exasperated sigh at yet another magical shenanigan she had pulled before he could stop her. He watched her pad across the ruined floor and scooped up the torque. She looked him right in the eye. “Shall I destroy it?”

Daniel looked at it for a long moment and huffed out a sigh. He shook his head and took it from her, looping it around his neck again. He felt the familiar magical weight of it settle across him and heard Hyde’s grumbling from somewhere in the dark of his mind. He offered her a half smile.

“Most people go for rings, you know.”

“We’re not most people.” Regina stretched up and looped her arms around his neck again. This time with no other intention than to be held close by him.

He obliged her and ducked his head, resting his nose against hers. She let loose a happy sigh at his closeness and became aware of the crackle of his scar against her front through just the fabric of his tee shirt.

“How long until seven?”

“A little over an hour.” Daniel pulled a little away from her to look at his watch. “Why?”

“Well, it’s take me…fifteen minutes to repair this place with some judicious application of magic, a further –say- twenty to shower, then you have to get showered, then we have to get dressed and then I’ll have to think about making the lasagne and…I’m a little short on time.”

“Well, I’m here to help. What do you want me to do?”

“It occurs to me that we can save at least twenty minutes if we shower together.” She toyed with the neckline of his tee shirt and spoke nonchalantly, studying the glow from his scar through the cloth and not trusting herself to look up at him and still maintain her innocent façade.

“You really think that will save time?” His voice was wry and she shrugged a negligent shoulder.

“Well, we shall never know unless we try.”

“Sold.” Daniel ducked and smirked at her shriek when he lifted her up off the floor and tossed her over his shoulder. He savoured her chuckle when he hurled himself up the stairs to the bathroom.

It turned out that they did _not_ save themselves twenty minutes. Dressing each other was also not an activity that was halved by being a team effort but it did only take Regina a hair raising four minutes to fix the ground floor of the manor with a stormcloud of magic.

So it was –again- that the manor reeked of magic and sex. They’d done nothing to prepare for the party but –when Regina opened the door to greet everyone- at least the floor was level, the couch once more in one piece, the chandelier back in place and Daniel was smiling again.

Smirking, actually.

 

 ** _Later…_**    

 

“That’s a big lasagne.”

Regina turned, the ice cubes in her tumbler of cider clinking, and raised an eyebrow at Eugene.

He stood awkwardly, his beer bottle dangling at his side, the amber light of sunset gilding the hair that tumbled over his forehead and lighting his dark eyes.

He really was so obdurately pretty that it made her teeth hurt.

“There are quite a few people here.” Regina sipped from her drink and looked out over the garden.

Regina had, decided to host her dinner party in the garden.

She’d always wanted a gigantic stone oven on her decking anyway.

Everyone had brought something. Granny had brought a barrel –an honest to gods barrel- of wine, Ruby had turned up with enough chips and dips to feed an army, Charming had brought, as Henry put it, a butt-load of cookies and marshmallows to make s’mores and Eugene and Rachel had brought a crate of beer and a veritable vat of parsnip soup.

They had been there for most of the evening. Drinking, talking, laughing a great deal and generally making Regina feel…wanted.

Well, most of them had.

Eugene had seemed pretty intent on being as ungracious a guest as possible and had greeted everyone with the put upon air of someone who was only doing this because his wife would make him miserable if he didn’t. He had resolved to sit out the duration in the back of the garden, nursing a beer and twisting that pretty face of his into a scowl.

There was very little doubt in Regina’s mind that he had been ousted from his cosy little sulking corner by none other than said loving wife and told to join the party or become part of the couch camping club for the foreseeable.

“So…” Eugene pressed his lips together and huffed out a sigh through his nose. “Rapunzel likes you.”

“I like her.” Regina turned completely to face him and leaned back against the railing of the deck.

“I guess that means we should…”

“Tolerate one another?” Regina smirked, sipping her drink again. “Not if you really don’t want to. I could cackle maniacally and make threatening gestures at you when her back is turned if you would prefer.”

Eugene heaved another sigh and took a pull from his beer with a jaw clenched so tightly it clicked.

“I don’t want to like you. Could you be less likeable?”

Regina laughed and didn’t miss the way Daniel turned to see why nor the look on his face when he saw it was another man that had won it from her.

“I’m not very likeable at all.” Regina assured him and looked back to check on her lasagne. The oven she had summoned from the clay deep under her garden was massive, certainly big enough for the trough of lasagne she’d had to make in order to feed everyone.

Her smile vanished at his next words.

“Your curse made me cheat on her.”

Regina turned to look at Eugene, her expression completely serious.

“Again and again and again. Every week, every night, a different throwaway woman. Meaningless sex. I never wanted for company and I was…a _shit_ to them. An absolute asshole. I was toxic to all women and it hangs over me even now like a stain. A stain that she and I can both see every single day. I’ll never be clean of it.”

Regina was at a loss as to what she could say. ‘Sorry’ hardly seemed adequate. That it wasn’t his fault? He already knew that. They both did. That Rachel would understand? Of course she did, but that didn’t mean she’d forget. That she’d take it back if she could?

Well…would she?

“I understand.” She finally settled on.

“What?” Eugene held up his hands. “You understand? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I understand feeling like that. Stained. Used.” Regina gave a humourless smile and a shrug, sipping from her drink. “Albeit that was from the other side of the meaningless sex equation.”

“You want me to feel sorry for you?”

“Never.” Regina’s voice was steel at the very prospect. “What do _you_ want?”

“An apology would be a start.”

“I’m sorry you’re mad at me.” Regina drawled at him and he scowled.

“Not good enough.”

“Too bad.” She shrugged a shoulder, dismissing him.

“Hey!” Eugene didn’t care that people turned to stare at his raised voice and the way he took a step towards her. It was only a quelling look from Regina that Eugene couldn’t see that kept them at bay.

Though it wouldn’t hold Daniel for long.

“They might have forgiven you, forced themselves to forget what you are, but I haven’t. You’re a god damn monster. You hurt everything you touched for decades and I’m supposed to just believe that you’ve changed? Maybe I could bring myself around to that, maybe I could get over it, if it wasn’t my _wife_ that you’d sunk your claws into next.”

Regina watched his temper rise impassively. The boy wasn’t nearly as charming as he thought he was.

“I would never hurt Rachel.”

“Yeah, today. Who’s to say you’re still going to be sane tomorrow?”

“Touché.” Regina shrugged.

She drank a little more and scanned the garden, watching everyone try to ignore the conversation going on above them whilst keeping an ear out in order to either pummel Eugene at a moment’s notice or rescue him from Regina –or possibly Daniel.

Her gaze finally landed on Rachel, who made no qualms about glaring up at her husband, arms folded over her chest, foot tapping ominously on the grass.

With a nod of her head, Regina summoned her up to the deck.

“I can prove I’ll never hurt her.” Regina turned back to Eugene. “You’re not going to like it, but it will be ironclad.”

“I doubt I could like you less than I do now.” Eugene scowled at her.

“Oh, _never_ underestimate the depths to which dislike can sink. Before you know it, we’ll be hating each other like we’ve been doing it our whole lives.” Regina informed him with a cheerful smile.

“Go hang yourself.” Eugene growled and it turned to a snarl of frustration when he realised Rachel was right at his side, having heard him perfectly.

“Hello, _sweetie_.” Rachel spoke from behind bared teeth.

“Ah, Rachel, dear, a moment.” Regina set aside her glass onto the railing of the deck and looked down into the garden, seeing Granny looking up at her intently. Regina nodded her head towards Rachel and Granny studied the little blonde for a long moment before nodding.

 “You shouldn’t be too mad at him. It’s justifiable really.” Regina smiled, drawing an answering one from the younger woman. “It’s also something I can approve of. His main problem with me, it would seem, is that I could be a danger to you.”

“Eugene!”

“Not,” Regina cut in before Eugene could be drawn into an argument to defend himself, “an unfounded fear. The beast that is my sanity is a somewhat changeable creature, but I can do something that will almost guarantee that I will never harm you.”

“Don’t bother.” Rachel shook her head. “I know you wouldn’t.”

“Yes, but this is to make amends with Eugene and –despite his deplorable manners- I believe you are quite attached to him and would rather he didn’t fight you every time I invited you over for dinner, yes?”

Regina looked beyond Rachel to see Ruby trot up onto the decking and tilt her head. Regina’s wolf had gotten pretty loud a moment ago and Ruby had known she was needed but not entirely sure what for.  

“It would make my life quieter.” Rachel agreed with a dark look at her husband.

“Do you trust me? Shut up.” Regina directed the last at Eugene.

“Yes.” Rachel elbowed Eugene in the gut to silence him when he moved to speak anyway and Regina nodded.

“This might be a little alarming.” Regina couldn’t put it off any longer and summoned her magic.

Rachel had opened her mouth to ask what would be alarming but forgot what she had been about to say when a _gigantic_ dark brown wolf hit the decking on all four dinner plate sized paws and looked up at her with light swallowing black eyes.

Eugene pushed Rachel behind him, standing between the wolf that had been –and really still was- Regina and his wife.

“Oh.”

Eugene twisted when Rachel made that small sound and he made a wordless sound of frustration when he found _another_ werewolf behind him.

George clattered up onto the decking to, tail whisked high and ears perked. He trotted over with his odd clicking gait and all three wolves began to circle the couple.

“What the hell is this?!” Eugene tried more than once to drag Rachel away from the circle of wolves but they were simply too big and surrounded them in a wall of fur and muscle on all sides. “Back off!”

Eugene smashed his bottle over the railing of the deck and the golden eyed wolf snarled with a sound like thunder, George growled too but all Regina did was huff magic on the remains of the bottle and they evaporated from Eugene’s hand as well as the shards on the deck.

The wolves stopped as one, lifted a forepaw each and then clapped it down onto the deck. With a shiver inducing grating sound, all three wolves dragged their claws over the deck, scoring deep marks into the wood. They backed up, raking a circle around Eugene and Rachel.

“It’s alright.” Rachel filled Eugene’s hand with her own and gave a reassuring squeeze. “If they wanted to hurt us, we’d be kibble by now.”

“You don’t know that,” Eugene never stopped trying to shield her from the wolves, “they could simply be drawing a dinner plate right now.”

Rachel, to Eugene’s incredulity, laughed.

He twisted to scold her for not taking their imminent and probably sticky demise seriously, but he was cut off by all three wolves throwing back their heads and howling.

Eugene winced at the sound, expecting it to be a horrifying assault on his ears but that wasn’t the case at all.

It was a lot like…singing actually.

All three wolves howled in harmony, their voices undulating in and out of each other’s, filling the dusk air with that beautifully haunting sound.

Eugene felt it, the magic twining about him. Not burning or painful, but deep and thrumming and rushing around him like more wild fur brushing against him from all sides.

The sound was still ringing in his head when pain lanced up his arm.

“Hey!” Eugene braced himself to forcibly drag his hand from a wolf’s jaws but Ruby had already released his wrist, her teeth having done little more than graze him. Scoring over his skin but not breaking it.

More magic burst and Regina and Ruby resolved into their human forms, crouching on the deck.

“What the hell was that?!” Eugene nearly exploded when he realised that Rachel was examining her own nibbled wrist. “Did you just turn us?!”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Ruby snorted at him, not at all happy with the way he had been talking to Regina. “It’s a mark of family. You’re under our protection. You call, we answer. That’s all. No new fur coats for you.”

“We’re family?” Rachel turned to Regina, her voice small.

“Yes, dear. This way I cannot hurt you even if I wanted to. The wolf would not allow it.” Regina smiled at her and then looked over at Eugene. “You don’t have to call me ‘mom’ if you don’t want to.”

“What?!”

“Oh, that’s strange,” Rachel pressed her hand to her chest, “I can feel that.”

“It takes some getting used to.” Regina scooped her glass up from the railing of the deck and took another drink. “It won’t be so loud after a couple of days.”

“I don’t want to be related to you!” Eugene nearly bellowed at Regina and Ruby quite calmly reached out, scruffed him by his tee shirt, and then dropped him on his ass.

“Tough.” She enunciated with a bite and Eugene stared up at her.

“They’re related to me, sweetie.” Rachel helped him to his feet again. “You have wolves for in-laws now. Probably best you don’t piss them off.”

Eugene huffed out a slow breath and glared at Regina, twisting to include Ruby in it too.

Ruby bared her teeth but folded her arms over her chest and didn’t give into the temptation to toss him over the side of the deck like she wanted to. She had to put up with him, but that didn’t mean he was part of her pack. Just because her wolf was lonely didn’t mean she wasn’t picky.

“I won’t…turn into a wolf, will I?” Rachel examined the small pink welts on her wrist from where Regina’s wolf teeth had gripped her.

“Oh, she’d be adorable!” Ruby clapped her hands at the thought. “Like a little tiny wolfy afghan hound!”

“No, dear.” Regina chuckled at Ruby’s antics, which she was sure were mostly to piss Eugene off, and shook her head. “The marks will fade but they will not disappear. They are to mark you as part of the pack. You’re the same as me. A werewolf in name only…well, perhaps slightly less than me.”

“Does this mean I have a sister?” Henry appeared at Regina’s side and she looped her arm over his shoulders.

“I suppose so.” Regina raised her brows. That was how the connection had sprung into place. She hadn’t intended it, but the relationship ties that the magic had forged between Rachel and herself had been decidedly that of a mother and daughter.

Which…she supposed was what Rachel had needed. Just as Regina had needed a sister herself and someone to look out for her in the way a mother should.

“Cool.” Henry beamed up at Rachel and then turned back to Regina. “Is the lasagne ready yet?”

Regina chuckled and twisted to look into the oven. She grinned.

“Yes, yes it is.”

“Can I…?” Henry pointed towards the other end of the deck and Regina smirked, nodding.

“Yes!” Henry dashed to the other end of the deck, picked up the stick and then rattled it enthusiastically around the large steel triangle that hung suspended from the eves of the house.

“Dinner’s ready!” He bellowed needlessly, everyone could see him perfectly well, but he had always wanted to do that.

He’d always wanted to have a whole bunch of people that he could call on to join him and his mom for dinner.

It had been so horrible that morning when he had thought everything was falling apart.

He was so glad that his mom was strong again. Strong enough to hold herself, to hold them, together.

He hopped down from banging on the triangle and sobered a little when he realised that it all might change again.

 Snow and Emma were on their way. With them might be Cora. Even if they defeated Cora, Snow and Emma would be back and…his mom would be back at square one.

He was super excited to see Emma again, Snow too of course, but he’d missed Emma most. He really wanted them both back…but he didn’t want his mom to be hurt.

Henry sucked in a deep breath and resolved to himself that he wouldn’t let that happen.

He’d hurt her before, so many times, but never again. He’d meant what he’d said when he’d told her he wouldn’t give up on her.

Even that morning, when he’d thought she was slipping back into her bad ways, he hadn’t run. He’d stayed with her and he’d hoped and hoped and hoped that she’d stay her.

And she had.

She’d stayed her and she’d come back to him. She always came back to him. She’d never been the one to leave. He had.

Never again.

Henry promised himself, swore it to himself, he’d never let them be separated again.

Now, with that done, his smile returned as he made a dash to the dinner table to get a seat next to the _massive_ lasagne.

He really was very hungry after all.

 

**_Later…_ **

 

“That,” David propped himself against the railing beside Regina, “was the best lasagne I’ve ever had.”

Regina smirked and drank more cider. She was getting happily tipsy whilst watching her two favourite men roughhouse in the yard.

“Don’t tell Granny.” David added quickly.

“My lips are sealed.” Regina’s smile widened when Henry bounced up and down in front of Daniel.

“Again! Again!”

Daniel huffed out a breath, shooting a glance up at Regina.

She nodded, a few more times should be fine. He _probably_ wouldn’t throw up if they stopped soon.

Daniel stooped, gripping Henry about the waist, then hurled him up into the air.

Henry shrieked a laugh, soaring fifteen feet straight up and plummeting right back down so Daniel could catch him and soften his landing. He immediately threw his hands up over his head.

“Again!”

“That’s weird to watch.” David noted idly. Sipping his beer.

“It’s wonderful.” Regina disagreed gently.

“I meant the whole super strength thing but, yeah, it’s good they get on.” David plucked at the label of his beer.

The party had wound down, Ruby had taken Granny home earlier, Eugene had Rachel had left pretty quickly after the meal since Eugene had taken all the company that he could stand and it was just David and Henry left.

“How are you holding up?” Regina turned to look at David.

“Fine.”

She raised a brow at him and he let out a slow sigh.

“Alright. Terrified.” David looked into his beer bottle and then up at the tiny lights Regina had conjured about the garden. Strewn in about the trees throwing a soft illumination over the entire garden. “You know how, when you’re hurrying to get somewhere and –the closer you get- the more certain you are that something’s going to get in your way? Stop you from getting there?”

“Yes.”

“It’s like that.” David gave a wry smirk. “They’re so close to getting back and…there’s so much in their way still.”

“I’ve set things in motion. I’ll do everything I can to get them back in one piece.”

“I know.” David smiled, he hadn’t known how much he’d needed her –needed _someone-_ to say that until she’d gone and done it. “What do you need me to do?”

“Turn up at the well tomorrow. About…noonish.”

“Okay, I don’t know how much help I’ll be but I’ll be there.”

Regina frowned at him.

“Hey, I’m good with a sword, not a wand. I guess I could be a mean jacket holder if you want.”

“You really are dense sometimes.” She shook her head. “You have no idea of your own power, do you?”

“I’m just a guy.” David shrugged. “I’ve got a sword, yeah, but I’m pretty much famous because of who my wife and mother-in-law are.” David nodded to her.

“David,” Regina straightened up off her elbows on the railing and looked at him, really looked at him, “you’re Prince Charming. _The_ Prince Charming. Do you really have no concept of what that means?”

“I’m beginning to think not.” David admitted slowly.

“You’re…a symbol.” Regina struggled to convey it. “A banner to rally to. You’re not just a person, you’re an ideal for others to strive for AND you’re incredibly good with that sword of yours.”

“That’s…” David twisted his mouth and shook his head.

“No, David, you stood against my Blackguard and _survived_. At the battle of Red Dawn, my spies reported you survived the massacre on a pile of no less than fifty of your fallen enemy.”

“It was really more like forty.” David shrugged.

“You never once flinched when George tried to execute you, you took on a dragon and won when you were nothing but an untried _boy_ , during the Ogre Resurgence, you killed one with nothing but a spear, you cleared the riots in Midas’ capital without even _one_ weapon, just your horse. Circling over and over and over. David, you don’t know the meaning of impossible. You’ve never run from a fight, never believed you couldn’t win, never lost hope. No matter the odds. Do you really mean to tell me that you have no idea how incredibly rare that is?”

They were both momentarily distracted by Henry’s wail of disappointment when Daniel finally cut him off from his new favourite pastime of being tossed up into the air like a doll.

Henry, yelling a challenge, bounded at Daniel and tackled him about the waist.

Daniel moved not an inch and looked down at the boy straining to even sway him with a quiet amusement. Daniel looked up at Regina and David, arching a brow as if to ascertain whether or not the boy was serious.

Regina shrugged a shoulder and Daniel chuckled.

Reaching down, he gripped Henry by his belt, lifted his churning feet off the grass, pried his arms from about Daniel’s waist and then dropped him onto his belly on the turf.

Henry gave a grunt of surprise more than anything else but he’d inherited Regina’s dumb determination no matter the odds and he attempted another tackle, not fazed in the slightest when Daniel _still_ didn’t budge.

“It’s nothing special.” David shrugged, smirking at his grandson’s roughhousing. He and David fenced, but he supposed the boy had never really had the opportunity to truly rough and tumble someone. Too afraid of hurting them, even if he was just a little boy. Daniel –to Henry- was nigh unto indestructible.

Something he proved again and again by knocking Henry on his butt and smirking when Henry tried a new tactic every time. It was the third or fourth time that Henry landed on his ass that Daniel murmured to him about how to fall _correctly_ …and promptly knocked him over again.

This time, Henry wasn’t winded and he rolled seamlessly to his feet. Grinning fiercely.

With another yell, he went for Daniel’s knees this time and actually succeeded in lifting one of his feet off the ground and forcing his arm out to retain his balance.

Daniel raised his brows, impressed, but gently shook the boy off and let him come around for another pass.

 “Anybody else could have done that. It’s no super strength or magic or anything it’s just…you do what you gotta do.” David looked over at Regina again.

“Then why is it always you that does it?” Regina had never stopped watching him, listening to those big uncomplicated cogs turn in his head.

He was a very simple man but that didn’t mean he was stupid he was just…incredibly unaware of how truly amazing he was. There was a reason that Prince Charming was as well known as the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin and it _wasn’t_ just because the aforementioned villains had taken a specific interest in him because of his relationship to Snow White.

David hunched his shoulders and pressed his lips together, trying to think of an answer that didn’t make him sound like more than he was.

“Poor planning?”

Regina laughed at him and shook her head.

“Oh, David…” She watched Daniel reach out and tumble Henry onto his ass on the grass again. Henry gamely bounded to his feet and attacked Daniel again. She sighed and spoke without any real heat in her tone. “I could rattle Snow for that alone. She’s eclipsed you. Made you think you’re nothing special when you’re really one of the most spectacular men I’ve ever met.”

David froze and blinked rapidly. Caught completely off-guard by the quite serious compliment she’d just paid him.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Weird.”

Regina laughed again.

“You’re Prince Charming, the name is a legend in and of itself, and you’re one of the very few people that actually is their name. That alone is an incredible power.” Regina looked over at David and waited until he met her gaze. She spoke with utmost seriousness and complete honesty. “Your power may not be spells and sorcery, but it is just as real. You inspire, David, a gift the likes of which Rumple and I could never even hope to aspire to. I only hope I’m around on the day you realise that you’re just as important as every other piece on the board…even that insipid wife of yours.”

David smiled and huffed out something like a chuckle. He sobered after a moment.

“Things are gonna get rough when they get back.” It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway.

“Yes.”

“They haven’t seen…will you give them a chance? To see, I mean? Don’t…don’t give up, okay?”

“I’m not going to jump through hoops for them.” Regina warned. “I won’t bow or scrape or beg for their approval. I still want to see Henry whenever I please, I’m still his mother. I have an equal claim to him and I’m _not_ going to put up with any… _conditions_ they might think to set for me. I play nice with you because we’re equals and you act accordingly. As soon as either of them thinks to treat me otherwise all bets are off.”

David’s mouth twisted and he considered that.

“I suppose that’s the best I can hope for. I’ll do my best to run interference.”

“Thank you.” Regina nodded and then added begrudgingly. “I shall do my best not to… _actively_ hate them both.”

David grinned and she held up a finger to halt him before he got too optimistic.

“Don’t mistake me, I’m on opportunist and they’re idiots, I’m going to have plenty of chances to insult and/or cause mischief for them and I cannot guarantee that I won’t leap gleefully upon each and every one of them.”

“Mischief?”

“Forty years of entrenched evil, remember? You can’t expect me to go cold turkey.”    

   David grinned and they both turned when Daniel called out softly.

“Regina, I think his batteries have run out.”

Regina chuckled when she saw Henry sprawled on the lawn like a starfish, his little chest heaving with every panting breath. Daniel prodded him with the toe of his boot and the boy swatted half-heartedly.

“Come on, we’d better put him to bed.” Regina straightened and moved around the decking, heading for the stairs. David followed her down onto the lawn and all three adults stood over Henry.

“Tired, kiddo?” David grinned down at his grandson and Henry lifted his arms without opening his eyes.

“Carry me.”

“You’re far too big to be carried. Come on, time to go home.”

Henry’s eyes snapped open and he laboured up onto his elbows.

“Daniel carries me.”

“Daniel is bigger, stronger and younger than I am.” David hunkered down onto his heels. “I’m an old man, you know.”

“No you’re not.” Henry grinned, sitting up fully and looking up at Regina. “Can I stay here tonight?”

“Afraid not.” Regina crouched down as well. “You need to be with David tonight.”

Henry looked at his mom for a long moment and then up at Daniel. Understanding ringing a faint bell somewhere. His lips pressed together.

“Okay,” he spoke to Daniel, “but you gotta share her some times.”

“Only with you.” Daniel nodded his head and reached down, grabbing Henry by the waist again and hurling him up into the air once more.

Henry shrieked a laugh and giggled manically when Daniel caught him again.

“One for the road.” Daniel grinned down at the boy and Henry hesitated a moment before tackling him about the waist again, but this time in a hug.

“See you tomorrow, Daniel.” Henry grinned up at him and then moved onto Regina, hugging her as tightly. “You too, mom. I love you.”

“Yes you do.” Regina kissed the top of his head. “And I you, little prince.”

“Fetch your jacket, Henry.” David hustled the boy away and then turned back to Regina. “So, who’s going to keep Henry out of the mix?”

“Daniel.” Regina nudged him with her shoulder and he frowned down at her.

“I will?”

“Oh, you’re not busy, are you?” Regina looked up at him, realising that she hadn’t asked. Again.

“Well, no, but…are you leaving Ruby to protect me or something?”

“Ruby will be there.” Regina nodded. “Granny too, but I’ll need all three of you to keep him corralled. Henry will want to be in the thick of it and I’m going to have no less than three of the heaviest hitters I know surrounding him considering what I’m doing tomorrow.”

“You want Daniel to protect Henry?” David clarified.

“Yes.” Regina looked between the two men. “If that’s alright with you two. I’d like you to keep him at the diner and as far away from the whole mess as I can get him. That’s why he’s staying with David tonight, so he doesn’t see me leave early tomorrow and follow me.”

Both Daniel and David stared at her and then shared a glance with one another.

“Wow, I totally don’t need to be here for this.” David decided abruptly and spun away to find his own jacket.

He hurried Henry through his goodbyes, murmured his own and hustled them both out of the garden and back towards Snow’s loft.

Regina frowned after them and then took a sip of her cider. She felt him looking at her but didn’t turn to see.

“You mean to say that you trust me to look after someone?”

“No.” Regina sipped from her drink again. “I trust you to protect Henry.” She turned to look at him, right in the eye.

Daniel watched her with those fathomless eyes of his and she gave a kind of smile.

“I believe in you, Daniel.”

He chuckled she shared in his smile. He sobered after a moment.

“Do you really trust me?”

“Daniel, my life is yours, you know this but that’s hardly saying anything. It’s worthless without you.” She spoke over him when he made to protest. “It’s the people that make me worth…anything. Henry, you, Granny, Ruby, Rachel –hell- even David.”

“What are you saying, love?”

“I’m saying; I trust you with _their_ lives.”

Daniel blinked at her.

“I can’t be in two places at once. I can’t protect them all tomorrow…I’m asking if you’ll do it. Will you help me keep my family safe?”

Daniel blinked down at her, stunned. He honestly hadn’t expected that she would ever ask him to help. Not with something like this. Not with something he’d thought she’d want to save him from.

“Safe while you do what?” Daniel asked instead.

“While I work with Rumple.” She didn’t try and hide it. No more hiding. Not from him. “I’ll need his power to win.”

Daniel scowled.

“It’s not a game. I know you two look at it that way but it is NOT.”

“No, it’s not a game.” She agreed easily. “It’s _war_ and not one I intend to lose. Twisted psychopath I may be, but I learned from the best and we’re both of us _highly_ motivated to achieve the same goal. The Dark One and the Evil Queen working together? We have thwarted greater calamities than even my mother just by whispering such things. He giggles, I smirk, and the entire world trembles.”

“You’re not that person anymore.”

“And neither, really, is he.” Regina spoke gently. “His True Love changed him just as much as you did me. We both have something to lose now.”

“Which makes him even more dangerous.” Daniel’s jaw clenched. He knew it was necessary, believed her when she told him it was, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“I know you don’t like him –hate him in fact- but he does have his uses. He also knows my mother and has almost as much reason to hate her as we do. He will help me.”

“Yes, I believe you, but help you do _what_?”

Regina quickly outlined her plan. Just the bare details, just so he knew how dangerous it was, and his reaction was entirely expected.

“That’s crazy!”

“Yes, dear.”

“Why the hell would you…?!” Daniel tunnelled his fingers through his hair and then shook his head. “There are about nineteen different ways to die in the first step alone.”

“I actually calculated for thirty six but we should compare notes, make sure I have all my bases covered.”

“Regina,” Daniel cupped her face in his hands and looked her in the eye, “I know you’re stupid powerful but…don’t overestimate yourself.”

“I’m not.” Regina reached up and curled her fingers around his wrists. “I’m doing this as safely as it can be done. I promise. It’s hare-brained and psychotic and it would kill anyone with a sane bone in their body…which is why I have to do it and no one else. I’m too crazy to die.”

“Don’t…joke.” He took her hand and pressed it to his chest. His monster heart kicking powerfully against his ribs. “It goes like a steam engine, but it will stop without you.”

“I know.” She smiled for him and cupped his jaw in her hand. “I’ll not go quietly into the night, Daniel. Not now and not ever. You’re here to come back to. You’re here to bring me back and I trust you to do it.”

This time, when she said the words to him, there was no flicker of doubt in his eyes. She grinned broadly and hurled herself against him, looping her arms around his neck and clutching him close.

“I love you.”

“Yes you do.” He bound his arms around her waist. “And I  love you.”

She kissed him softly and watched him when he seemed mired in worry still.

“We can do it.” She spoke softly and he met her eyes again.

“Why do you sound so sure today? You were terrified yesterday.”

“A lot has happened since then.” She shrugged a shoulder and he chuckled wryly. “I…have friends now. Well, that is inaccurate. I _know_ I have friends now. I have you, I have my magic, Hyde, Rumple, Ruby, Granny, David and a further ace up my sleeve that my mother,” Regina slowly and wickedly grinned, “will NEVER see coming.”

“Truly? Do tell.”

“It’s a surprise.”

Daniel looked down at her and smirked.

Knowing Regina, it would be one _hell_ of a surprise.   


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35 – Groundwork**

“This is a terrible plan.” The elevator doors swished open with a wave from Rumple’s hand.

“So you have said.” Regina stepped out into the dim cavern and turned back to him with an arched brow. “Repeatedly.”

“That does not change the veracity of my argument.”

“Afraid?” She needled him.

“Rightly so. There are many things that could go wrong with this insane scheme of yours.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Better to be vaporised in the explosion than to die slowly in the fallout.” Rumple muttered darkly and she shot him a Look.

“I am not about to set off a nuclear device.”

“No, you’re about to be one. Does the term ‘mutually assured destruction’ not alarm you in any way?”

“You’re whining, Rumple, it’s a terrible quality.”

“I am complaining, not whining. If you want, I can illustrate the difference.”

Regina heaved a sigh and let it out on a heartfelt groan. Her shoulders slumped and she looked up at the ceiling as if searching for patience buried there like the diamonds they had just taken from the roof of another cavern.

Regina had tried to convince him that they could do it themselves but he had coolly reminded her that it was _her_ quest for redemption that hampered her with such ridiculous things as morals and he’d do as he damn well pleased.

His smirk had faltered a little when she had asked him if Belle’s opinion was of a similar slant.

Still, she was working with him. She was one of the few people that actually knew him quite well, so she knew what she was getting into.

“Why haven’t I killed you yet?”

“Probably because you don’t know what kind of failsafe I’ve built into the curse in the event of my untimely demise.” Rumple told her cheerfully and Regina shot him a glare, but there was something of a smirk to it.

“We haven’t duelled in a long time.” She said suddenly and kept a weather eye on their surroundings. She knew well that the cavern was not as empty as it appeared.

“Well…no. Again, I suspect that has something to do with the strong desire I have to peel you like an onion whenever I see you.” Rumple followed her.

Regina wrinkled her nose when she smiled as if he had just complimented her hair or shoes and then turned back to the task at hand.

“You know what to do?”

“We’ve been over this.” Rumple sighed, he set his cane aside, ready to be scooped up later, and limped towards the gaping chasm that yawned before them.

“I know, but you kept _complaining_ so I’m not sure you picked up all the salient points.” Regina prodded at him again.

“I know what to do.” Rumple said through gritted teeth.

“Outstanding.” Regina shoved him over the edge of the chasm and listened to him yelp as he plummeted. She smirked and called after him. “Watch the first step!”

There was a long moment of silence.

“I _loathe_ you.” His voice echoed up from within the darkness.

“And people say you don’t care.” Regina stepped off the precipice as well and dropped into the dark.

She arrested her momentum with a simple spell that sent up little dust clouds as her booted feet touched down. Boots which barely had a heel. Regina was dressed with something of an alarming practicality. Dark leather pants, knee high boots, and a cable knit sweater that still smelled of Daniel. She usually preferred a much more sedentary approach to magic, but this step required a more physical component than usual.

She glanced about herself. Both she and Rumple had dropped into what was seemingly a bottomless chasm and was actually only about a fifty foot drop. Tall towers of rock surrounded them in staggered formations, hewn by magic rather than wind or water. Regina knew they could have used them to climb down but she was on something of a schedule and had no desire to be Rumple’s crutch just because he was too miserly hording his power to jump right down.

Hence the little help over the ledge back there.

“You could have killed me.” Rumple hissed at her.

“Not today, dear. You might actually live up to your promises and be useful.” Regina smirked at him.

Rumple growled at her.

“Use your words.”

“Where is she then?”

“Oh, she’s here somewhere, gathering herself. In fact, she should be manifesting right about,” a deafening shriek rent the cool damp air of the cavern and sent more dust billowing in tiny cyclones, “now.”

Rumple and Regina watched with equal parts horror and fascination as Maleficent’s remains were hauled back together by the binding spell. The dust clouds rose, swirling ash colliding and congealing together. Forming bones, tattered clothes, a tarnished crown and a sunken face. The remains of Regina’s best friend.

“How do you know she’ll go after you instead of me?” Rumple asked her suddenly and Regina glared at him incredulously.

“Really? Now you’re asking this?” Regina snorted in derision when it appeared the question hadn’t occurred to Rumple until right that second. “Well, I was planning on getting her attention and letting her desire for revenge do the rest.”

Regina stooped and picked up a rock. It was about the size of her fist, she weighed it in her hands and narrowed her eyes at the writhing wraith that had once been a dragon sorceress of world renown. Regina’s lips pursed, she hauled back, and let fly.

The rock clanged as it bounced off the tarnished crown, taking a good chunk of the desiccated skull it encircled with it. Regina winced even as the wraith rounded on her and Rumple sank back into the shadows. The ash billowed away from the head wound Regina had given it and then clouded back together again.

Ah, she hadn’t thought the regeneration would be that fast.

“Hello, Mal.” Regina said brightly and the wraith, its sightless head ticking back and forth, zeroed in on her.

 ** _“Giiiinnnaaaa…_** ”

Regina couldn’t stifle the shiver that rent her spine with that hoarse voice.

With a shriek, the wraith lunged for her, great bony claws swiping through the air and cutting into the spot Regina had stood not a half moment before.

Regina leaped straight up, flipping backwards and landing with a thump on the smooth wall of the cliff. Spinning on her heel, she took off at a sprint, running along the wall of the cliff, perpendicular to the cavern floor.

Maleficent’s remains howled in rage and pain and swooped after her.

Regina kicked off the wall and bounded to the tallest tower of rock. Stopping only to check the wraith was fully focussed on her and that Rumple was actually holding up his end of the bargain. Seeing the tell-tale plume of fire, Regina ducked another vicious swipe and continued on her way.

Back on the cavern floor, Rumple stepped from the shadows, a flare of flame balanced between his fingers and watched his former apprentice’s progress. He hadn’t known whether or not to believe that she had ever dallied with the Count, but her prowess at flitting told him that she had at least gone on _some_ midnight jaunts with the vampire.

Still, he was not here to ruminate on her previous conquests, he was here to stop an old one of his.

Rumple limped out of the shadow of one of the towers. The flame in his hand provided light to see by, and his other hand stretched out, glowing softly with the golden shimmer of a different kind of spell.

He did hope Regina wasn’t mistaken or she was about to be left here to die.

Rumple ducked when the wraith shrieked over his head, the air of its passing ruffling his hair it had been so close.

With a harried look, Rumple redoubled his efforts and grinned none too pleasantly when his secondary spell hit pay dirt. The wardstone lit up like it was neon under the decades of dust and the ash remains of Maleficent’s last incarnation. With a sweep of his hand, Rumple dropped the dowsing spell and replaced it with a simple sweep of force to cast away the loose earth covering the stone.

Oh.

That was a lot bigger than he had thought it would be. He had known the wardstone would need to be large in order to contain a being of Maleficent’s power –she was really a dragon after all- but he hadn’t realised quite how intricate the runes would be nor how deeply they would be carved into the bedrock.

He had expected to excavate a disc. Perhaps a couple of inches thick at most. Rumple looked sideways at the flame in his palm and sighed.

“I think I’m going to need a bigger spell.”

Meanwhile, Regina hopped, skipped and jumped, across the towers of granite. Each ‘hop’ being about thirty feet. She put an extra effort into the last and soared through the air, bringing her hands and feet up. Her leather gloves and boots warping with a simple spell into sharpened points that dug into the crevices in the cavern wall and halted her there rather than letting her plummet to her doom.

The wraith, undeterred by such things as the gaping chasm beneath it and the effects of gravity, flew at her with a boundless wrath. Regina huffed out a breath of effort. Damn it, she was trying not to use too much energy for this.

Still, the wraith didn’t have a ranged attack, it could only chase and swipe at her. Had Regina been forced to shield at the same time as flitting about like a flea on Ritalin, the morning might not have been going so well for her.

With an extremely unladylike scamper, Regina darted along the wall like a squirrel and launched herself again. She soared back over the chasm to land on the nearest rock tower –which trembled somewhat alarmingly- and then wasted no time in bounding to the next and the next. She needed to keep Maleficent away from Rumple long enough for him to remove the wardstone.

The next tower was even shakier than its predecessors and Regina whooped in alarm when it shifted beneath her boots. In that single moment, the wraith snatched her up in a crushing grip. Forcing all the air from Regina’s lungs in a yell of pain and shock.

Well, this was a wrinkle.

Rumple heard Regina’s yell, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about it without giving up on his own spell and building the flame up to this intensity had taken time and effort that they really didn’t have to spare. They were pushing it as it was.

Rumple’s flame, when it had started, had been about the size of a soccer ball and a bright orange in colour. Now it was long and thin, about the same width and length as the cane he had left above, and a blinding magnesium white.

It was also cutting through the dense granite bedrock like a knife through butter. Rumple was slowly, delicately, working his way around the wardstone. Cutting as close as he dared without damaging the runes carved into it but as little as possible so as to be done more quickly. He was sweating with the effort, not just from the heat but from the tension. There was a lot riding on him not fucking this up.

When it was done, he snuffed the flame and fell forward to catch himself on his knees. Panting a second. He flinched when Regina thumped to a landing beside him.

“Please tell me you’re done.”

“Aye, lass, I’m done.”

“Good. Duck.”

Rumple didn’t even hesitate and hit the deck, Regina threw herself across him, landing on the wardstone and tumbling over it, heedless of the still red hot rock at the edges. She slapped her hand down on one of the runes –it didn’t matter which- and sent a snap of power into the stone. The runes blasted to life, flaring up with a rush of power that buffeted Regina clean out of the circle they made up.

Right in time to catch the wraith that swooped into the shining light.

Maleficent, trapped in the newly restricted prison, shrieked and battered at the magical walls surrounding her on all sides. Twisting and roiling like a snake in a bag. Rumple didn’t miss the way Regina winced at the sounds.

“Anything missing?” Rumple heaved himself to his feet and dusted his suit down. “Limbs? Life? Marbles?”

“I ripped Daniel’s sweater.” Regina leaned heavily on her knees, panting from her exertion. “You?”

“I do believe I may have broken a nail.”

Regina gusted a laugh and he answered it with a tight smile. His heart still pounding in his ears. Neither of them wanted to admit how close that had been and this was just the first part of their plan. Despite Regina’s run-ins with despot kings, wolves and faeries, she was out of practice as a combat mage.

Both she and Rumple had given up sparring and war magic a long time ago, both of them preferring the cunning game of manipulation to get what they wanted. It was so much easier when everyone else expended the energy for you.

“So…how are you planning to get your new patio to the well?” Rumple forced himself to straighten up when Regina did. She planted her hands on her hips, letting her breathing slow.

“We’ll have to carry it.”

“We?” At Regina’s droll look, Rumple continued. “Why not just transport it magically?”

“First of all, I want to shore up my reserves for that kind of thing, secondly, I have no idea how the wards will react in the space between.” Regina spoke of the empty void that a sorcerer had to pass through to teleport between one place and the next.

Regina ambled around the wardstone, still breathing heavily but recovering quickly. The air was thick with magic down here and it sank into her skin, recharging her nicely. She turned away from the wardstone and stalked to the edge of the chasm. She leaned over the edge, looking down into the bottomless black. She deliberately kicked a pebble over the edge and listened intently.

Her ears were sharp, keen from the physical improvements she had made to herself with magic over the last few weeks. Mostly to survive Hyde and make her generally more durable, but you couldn’t up one thing without the other.

Either way, cat-like hearing or no, she didn’t hear the pebble hit the ground.

Regina lifted the small dark pouch of material in her hand and weighed it in her palm. Her thoughts turned over and over, measuring it from every angle and trying to predict how this would come back to bite her…Regina huffed out a sigh and then tossed the pouch over the edge.

It plummeted into the dark, never to be seen again.  

“True.” Rumple eyed the wardstone as it cooled. Looking at Regina when she turned to face him again. They both ignored what she had just done. It had become her curse when she had cast it, it was hers to make and break as she saw fit…now that he probably couldn’t stop her even if he wanted to. “I’d rather not have her loose in the void and have to give up teleportation as a result.”

“See? I do have good ideas occasionally.” Regina shrugged her shoulder and looked down at the wardstone herself.

The wraith of Maleficent had disintegrated again. Being caught within the barrier had fooled it into thinking that Regina and Rumple were no longer there. The runes etched into it had died into dormancy and no longer glowed. For now, it was safe to transport.

 “It’s a big stone, dearie. You’re going to have to change quite a bit if you want to be strong enough to carry it.”

“Not that much.” Regina began to gather the spell in question.

Rumple listened intently for a moment and then looked at her incredulously.

“You cannot be serious!”

Regina just grinned.

 

**_Aboveground, the Library,_ **

 

Belle was happily alphabetising when she first heard it.

A hollow banging, like something huge being scraped against metal.

Belle frowned and turned around, searching for the source of the sound. It was getting louder and louder. Belle cautiously moved to investigate. It was coming from…the mural. A strange configuration of shattered mirror arranged to reflect the continents of this world.

Belle tiptoed closer. The sound was incredible now. A thunderous banging and scraping and –with a squeak- Belle hopped backwards when the entire panel of the mural moved.

It soundlessly slid upwards, disappearing into the wall above, to reveal a set of huge doors. Gears and mechanisms covered them, buttons and dials to the side, a wheel that slowly turned in time with the rattling chains moving…unlocking.

Belle looked around for a weapon and was disheartened to find she had just a broom to her name. Snatching it up anyway, Belle held it aloft, ready to dish out whatever hurt she could muster if she had to.

The doors slid open and she froze.

“Rumple?”

“Belle!” Rumple’s eyes widened. “What are you doing here? It’s not even seven yet.”

“I couldn’t sleep, I came to…what’s going on?”

The banging was getting even louder and it seemed to spur Rumple into action. He hurried out of the elevator and turned. With a wave of his hand, it moved upwards, disappearing into the ceiling. The sound –without the elevator to muffle it- was cacophonous.

“Rumple, what is that?!” Belle clapped her hands over her ears.

“I’m sorry, Belle. I didn’t think you’d be here for this. I thought I could…”

Rumple’s words were cut off by the shriek of rending metal. Belle gasped and Rumple hurried her out of the way, standing protectively in front of her.

A stone, a huge flat disc of granite, hefted into view in the empty shaft. It steamed a little, runes and sygils carved into it that glowed in a soft light. It wedged in the doorway of the elevator and –with a shove- buckled the doors apart and rolled out into the lobby.

Rumple shoved Belle further back as the disc rolled past like a giant coin. It wobbled on its side, spinning in a grating circle and spiralled down until it thumped flatly to the floor, sending up a cloud of dust and grit skittering over the tiled floor.

Belle’s mouth dropped open and gaped even wider when the next thing crawled out of the elevator shaft.

A hand, clapped over the lip of the doors and –with a grunt- Regina hauled herself into view. She was panting, her face flushed with effort. She huffed her hair out of her eyes and crawled out of the tunnel and into the lobby of the library. She rested on her hands and knees, breathing heavily from her exertions and looked over at Belle and Rumple with an arched brow.

She lifted her head and winced when it bumped the ceiling.

Regina was now over twenty feet tall.

“I thought you said she wouldn’t be here.”

Regina’s voice, coming from a much larger chest and throat, filled all available space.

“I didn’t think she would be.” Rumple hadn’t moved from in front of Belle, his cane half raised off the floor as if ready to strike. Regina eyed it with an arched brow and snorted.

“Like you could stop me if I was of a mind to.” She seemed to mutter to herself and then turned back to speak to Belle. “Apologies, Belle, I intended for the damage to be repaired before you were even aware of it.”

“What…what damage?” Belle asked weakly. She was still getting over the sight of a giant Evil Queen.

Not that she had spent much time being evil recently, but it was a lot easier to believe she might be when she filled almost the entire room.

“It’s going to be a tight fit.” Regina offered only that as an explanation, crawling forward across the tiled floor, sitting on her heels and hefting the disc of stone.

Belle opened her mouth to protest but was held back by Rumple. He waved his hands, opening the double doors of the library, and Regina shoved the stone. She turned it diagonally but it still took out a fairly sizeable chunk of the doorframe and knocked the doors from their hinges. Regina wasted no time in clambering out of the library after it and into the street beyond.

“She…what…how?!” Belle finally spun Rumple to face her. “What’s going on?!”

“Cora is on her way to Storybrooke, today, the queen and I have temporarily formed an alliance to stop her.” Rumple focussed on the doors of the elevator. Repairing them as best he could. He summoned a wind to sweep the door and grit from the floor, though the scuffing of the tiles was another matter entirely.

“She’s coming _today?!_ How is that connected to the giant wrecking my library? _”_ Belle pointed out of the ruined front doors. Regina could be seen dusting herself off with thunderous claps of her hands over her trousers.

“This was all her idea.” Rumple fixed the front doors, effectively closing them on the sight of Regina plucking at the hole in her now giant sweater. “Belle, I’m doing this for the right reasons. If Cora gets here…I’m not sure I could protect you. Not without a terrible price.”

“Is Cora really that dangerous? I’ve never seen you so,” afraid, “worried before.”

“Believe me when I tell you that Regina is probably the only one who knows how truly dangerous this woman can be.” Rumple fidgeted with his cane. “I knew that she was dangerous, it was why I took an interest in her in the first place but…at least she never had power over me. Not like a mother does over a child. Regina knows well to fear her mother.”

“The Evil Queen thinks someone is dangerous?”

“The Queen thinks many people are dangerous.” Rumple resisted the bizarre urge to correct Belle on the Evil addition to the Queen’s title. It wasn’t exactly accurate now. Then again he supposed the Morally-Objectionable-But-She’s-Really-Trying-And-Isn’t-Doing-Terribly Queen didn’t have the same ring to it.

“You included?”

“Maybe less now than she once did.” Rumple didn’t know if he should be pleased about that. He knew a non-threatened Regina was marginally less dangerous. Right now, she simply didn’t like him and would kill him if the opportunity presented itself. If she felt threatened, she might go about making opportunities to take advantage of.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are less likely to fall afoul of her again.” Rumple shifted uneasily. “I swear to you that I’m not going to hurt anyone with this. Even if we manage to stop Cora, she won’t be harmed.”

The doors clattered open, flipped inward by a giant hand.

“When you’re quite ready. We do have an appointment to keep.”

“Yes, yes, dearie.” Rumple snapped at her. “Unlike some, I’m actually telling my loved ones what’s going on.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I actually trust Daniel. He’s implementing his part of the plan as we speak.” Regina looked like she was resisting the strong urge to reach into the library and swat certain imps like flies.

“I want to see.” Belle said suddenly. “For myself. I want to see what you’re doing.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Hurry up then, if you’re coming.” Regina gusted a sigh that caused a small breeze.

Belle took that as permission, snatched up her coat from the reception and dashed out of the freshly repaired doors to stand almost as tall as Regina’s knee where she crouched.

“That’s amazing.” She breathed, looking up at Regina towering over her.

“It’s a simple enough spell.” Regina held the door open until Rumple limped sourly out of it but let them swing shut to clip his heels.

Belle hurried to lock the doors and looked up at both sorcerers excitedly.

“What happens now?”

“I go and get the car.” Rumple glared up at Regina. “I’ll meet you up there.”

“Oh.” Belle looked disappointed and Regina smirked.

“You can come with me. If you like.”

Rumple stiffened in the act of summoning a leather harness around the wardstone. Belle hesitated.

“It’s only a suggestion.” Regina pushed herself to her feet, stalking over to the stone and hefting it up by the straps with a huff of effort.

 Belle had expected her footsteps to pound and shake the street she was so big, but she still moved with the silent and feline grace of a predator. A really, really, BIG predator.

Regina slung the stone over her back like a backpack.

“You are perfectly welcome to drive with Rumple if you think you can convince him to take you.”

Belle dashed over to stand at Regina’s heel.

“I’ll go with you.” She very nearly yelped when Regina bent and scooped her up like a doll. For a moment, Belle thought something awful was going to happen to her, but Regina simple perched her on her shoulder like a parrot.

“You may hold onto my ear, if you must.” Regina turned to look down at Rumple, who looked like he was sorely regretting this entire thing. “Well?”

With a surly wave of his hand, more magic poured over Regina and Belle both and Belle made a sound of surprise when she looked down and saw her form flicker. She seemed to turn transparent for a moment and then it faded, leaving her able to see herself once more.

“What was that?”

“A veil.” Regina answered deliberately quietly. “Rumple and I are keenly aware that we still make most of the civilians quite nervous. Him walking around flinging spells like confetti and myself being distinctly larger than life are more likely to cause mass panic than achieve our goals. No one can see us now.”

“That’s…very clever.” Belle agreed and held onto Regina’s ear when the giant queen turned and started down the street. She felt the tremor of Regina’s chuckle rumble through her.

“Well, despite our glaring weaknesses, we are neither of us fools.” Regina spoke blandly and took a turn off, sidling between two buildings, down an alley and out the other side.

The streets were all but deserted. Those few people that were out and about either didn’t notice them at all or looked around with vaguely puzzled expressions. Belle stifled her chuckle with her palm.

“You’re having fun.”

It wasn’t a question but Belle answered anyway.

“Rumple doesn’t like to show me magic. He thinks I don’t realise how dangerous it is, I do, but it still fascinates me.”

“Henry is exactly the same.” Regina, with a ten yard stride, unsurprisingly made short work of leaving the town and heading for the woods beyond. “Now that I’m no longer using it to try and turn his family into a Sunday roast, he thinks it is ‘cool’.”

Regina didn’t add that he was already using it. That was for family to know and everyone else to hopefully never find out.

“I…I’m glad your relationship has improved with him.” Belle spoke tentatively. “I thought it was sad when you were parted.”

Regina nearly knocked Belle off her shoulder when she automatically turned to look at her and was forced to catch her before she tumbled down to the ground.

“Sorry.” Regina settled a somewhat windswept Belle back up onto her shoulder. “You surprised me.”

“Perfectly alright.” Belle spoke weakly.

Regina turned off the road and into the trees proper. Cutting across country. As the only person in the town who had a solid twenty eight years of accumulated memories of the place, Regina knew it blindfold. Regina had walked these woods for decades and not entirely for the paranoid reasons of always having several escape routes from any location at hand.

It was a little different when she was nearly twenty five feet tall and had to duck the branches of centuries old trees rather than walk under them unhindered.

“So…” Regina sought a safe and/or useful topic of conversation. “When’s the wedding?”

Belle might be tiny in comparison to Regina right then, but she could still feel the librarian stiffen.

“I don’t…”

“Belle, that ring reeks of magic, even were I blind to the shiny bauble, I’d still know it was there.” Regina smirked but there was no malice to it. “I must admit that I’m surprised he had the courage to propose. Rumple doesn’t ask for things. He takes them. Doesn’t want to run the risk of being rejected I suppose.”

“Like you?”

Regina smiled.

“I learned many things from him.” Regina glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Like how not to be deflected from a topic of conversation.”

Belle remained stonily silent and Regina couldn’t resist prodding. She had a captive audience after all.

“Come on, I feel –as women- that I am honour bound to ask for every gushing detail. Did he bend on one knee?”

“No.” Belle looked down at her toes and huffed out a breath. “He didn’t propose at all.”

Regina ground to a halt, a frown on her face while she tried to make sense of that.

“What?”

“He gave the ring to me for…safe keeping.” Belle looked down at the bronze ring wrought of Rapunzel’s donated hair. “I don’t think he even realised which finger he put it on.”

Regina was still for long blinking moments and then she huffed out a breath.

“Henry’s right, for geniuses we are REALLY stupid.” With a small shake of her head, so as not to knock Belle from her perch, Regina started along her trail again. Pushing aside a centuries old fir like she might bend back a stalk of corn. “I could set fire to him if you like. Just a little bit.”

Belle chuckled, her mood brightening a little.

“It’s alright, Ruby’s already helping me with something to make my displeasure known.”

“You could always just…tell him.” Regina offered after a moment. Her breathing deepened in relation to the incline of the hill she was hiking up. The stone wasn’t light after all, even if she was proportionally big enough to carry it now.

“And ruin my fun?” Belle shook her head and held onto Regina’s ear again when the sorceress was forced to scramble up a rock formation that would have taken her over an hour to negotiate had she been her regular size. “No, speaking with you the other night, seeing how you two actually think, there are few areas in which I excel where Rumple doesn’t. It might be nice to put him in his place a little bit.”

Regina reached the plateau above the rock face and blinked, her lips twitched and ten she threw back her head and laughed.

Belle winced at the sheer volume of the sound but it was actually a nice laugh. In all honesty, she had expected a cruel cackle rather than anything else –even Rumple had a grating giggle at times- but Regina had a nice laugh. Belle realised then that it was nicer because –well- she supposed the Queen hadn’t had much reason to use it until recently.

“Oh, he deserves every inch of you, Belle.” Regina stifled herself into throaty chuckles and then swept aside the last few trees, revealing the well beyond.

“Here?” Belle looked down with interest. “What is it about this place that is so important for spells?”

Regina was quiet for long moments, crouching down and lowering Belle to the ground, shooing her back to a safe distance, her face thoughtful as to how to explain. She removed the stone, thudding it to the ground and then sat down on her heels. She didn’t retake her normal size just yet.

“If you think of all the worlds as a bag of marbles,” Regina began hesitantly and then warmed to her idea, “and those marbles all clink together and rub against one another, causing friction, yes?”

Belle nodded.

“Well, those points of friction are places of _immense_ power. Think of the earthquakes that are caused when tectonic plates grate against one another, now imagine that on a planetary scale.”

Belle took the time to imagine that and her eyes widened.

“Exactly.” Regina’s mouth lifted in a half smirk, glad to have such an able and _sensible_ student that seemed to comprehend the forces that magic involved. Unlike certain little boys that thought locking off nerve endings and using magic to articulate a melted arm was good enough. “That friction also wears a thin point between worlds. In this case, between this world and ours. This point here, this well, is the reason the Curse of Curses brought us to this world.”

“I thought it brought us here because there was no magic.”

“I don’t think so. I think that was coincidence. The Curse had a…weighty price but it still did something _staggering_ for such a comparatively paltry price. I mean, I was powerful back then but even I could not have hoped to take us –say- two worlds away. Along to the marble beyond this one in the bag.” Regina shook her head. “I believe the wording as to the lack of magic in this world was solely to let it be known that we were travelling to this one rather than one of the others that the Enchanted Forest is connected with.”

“Have you been to those worlds?”

“No.” Regina shook her head quickly. “Believe me when I tell you that you should be _glad_ that I was not powerful enough to take us there.” Regina set about freeing the wardstone from the leather harness it had been carried in. She straightened again and surprised Belle by lifting the leather to her mouth and tearing into it with her teeth. It was like chewing five month old jerky, but she wouldn’t let the magic go to waste.

“What are they like?”

“Well, most of them are much like our own, or this one, fairly hospitable and suiting to supporting life but…you have read the Bible of this world? The Christian one?” Regina gulped down the leather with a bit of a wince at the taste. Rumple’s magic always tasted so… _gritty._

“Yes.” Belle wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t much like it.”

“Their depiction of hell…?” Regina gathered the buckles left over from the harness in one hand and pondered what to do with them for a moment. Her brows raised when something occurred to her.

Leaning forward, she began to dig in front of the well. Her huge hands, each as long as a person was tall, raked deep furrows in the earth. It was the work of moments to excavate a hole big enough for the wardstone.

Regina took the gold of the buckles from the harness and studded them like steeds throughout the hollow. Then she hefted the stone with a grunt and dropped it into the hole.

Belle’s eyes widened when her brain caught up with what Regina had just said.

“That was the other option?!”

“It is the world joined both to the Enchanted Forest and to this one, which is why there are myths about such a wretched place in both worlds. There is always a little bleed. Leaking from places such as this.” Regina nodded to the well.

She smoothed the earth she had dug out back over the stone in a thin layer, she scattered leaf litter over it again and fussed for a few moments more whilst she camouflaged it enough to pass a glancing inspection. Regina hoped that she could offer enough of a distraction for Cora to step into the trap.

Considering she planned to set fire to Cora as soon as she got the opportunity, Regina was pretty confident that she’d be capable of snaring her mother’s attention at least for a moment or two.

“So you’re going to use the power of the well alongside the weak point in order to wedge a hole?”

“More like bore a tunnel.” Regina nodded, that was close enough. She tipped forward, catching herself on the dais the well was raised on and then stuck her arm inside. She reached down, soaking her mucky hand in water and then scooped some out, washing the dirt away from her hands.

“Won’t your mother…I don’t know, see that coming?”

“My mother knows exactly diddly about this world other than it not having magic and me being here. If she did, she’d have come here a long time ago.” Regina sat back on her heels again, wiping her hands on her thighs “There are other weak points in Storybrooke, us opening this one will…make it the most tempting target for the magic of the portal to focus on.”

“Like lightning to a rod?”

Regina smiled, pleasantly surprised.

“Exactly like. It’s not _certain_ that Cora will appear here but we’ve made it as likely as possible and lain our traps accordingly. We’ve done all we can do.” Regina studied the well for a long and silent moment and frowned a little.

“What now?”

Regina shrugged one gigantic shoulder and then began to shrink. Magic shimmered around her and she melted down until she was once more her regular size. Quite small, but she seemed _incredibly_ tiny now.

Regina rose carefully to her feet, intensely aware of the head rush on steroids she was susceptible to since she had just lost about twenty feet of height. She blinked rapidly to dispel it and huffed out a slow sigh. She could feel it wearing already, the high magics she had been throwing around that morning.

“Now we wait.” Regina belatedly answered Belle’s question.

“You’re sure it will happen today?”

“To a reasonable degree.” Regina strolled across the clearing and dropped down to recline in the roots of an ancient pine. She automatically tapped into the tree, her magic twining down the roots and into the earth, connecting with Storybrooke’s magic.

She felt it rise up to greet her, she got the sense of purring, and smiled softly.

“What is that?”

Belle stood over her and Regina opened one eye. With a frown, she opened the other and tilted her head, studying Belle.

“You can hear it?”

“See it.” Belle was studying Regina’s hand on the root of the tree. “Like…heat haze. Almost.”

“Interesting.” Regina smirked and lifted her free hand, patting the root beside the hollow she reclined in. She was dirty anyway but there was little point in Belle getting mucky too. “I suppose it’s to be expected. Hang around with one of us for long enough and you’re bound to pick _something_ up.”

Belle cottoned on.

“It’s magic? I can see magic?”

“Sense it certainly.” Regina turned, watching Belle, considering her. “You are _very_ clever. Aren’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, but Belle answered anyway.

“Oh, I don’t think so. Not like you and Rumple.”

“Getting that way though.” Regina’s jaw rocked to the side and she hummed in the back of her throat. “Do you remember everything you read?”

“Most of it.” Belle leaned on her elbows, smiling. “Drives Rumple crazy when I remind him that he’s forgotten something.”

“Yes. He’s always hated that.” Regina smiled and Belle worked herself up to ask something. Regina waited, she found herself liking the little librarian.

Oh, no mistake, she’d use the girl against Rumple if she had to, but that didn’t mean she’d like doing it.

“What was he like?” Belle studied her hands and risked a glance at Regina. “Before…”

“Before you?”

Belle bit her lip and nodded.

“He was…” Regina looked away and studied the pines. She smiled softly. “He was wonderful. He was terrible. He was funny and he was cruel…he made me a monster.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It is not your place to apologise for him and he never will.” Regina huffed a chuckle. “I gave up on sympathy from him a long time ago, but you misunderstand me.” Regina lapsed into silence for another long moment and Belle let her gather her words. “He was a tyrant. He was darkness. He took over my soul. When he giggled my entire world trembled…but he gave me power. Gave me a reason to go on. He gave me the tools I needed to survive and all I had to do was…give him my life.”

Belle frowned and Regina smiled.

“There’s more than way to murder someone, dear. The Regina I was, that young idealistic girl, she is _long_ since dead. She’s never coming back. He wiped her from existence as surely as if he’d run me through.”

Belle looked, Regina blinked in confusion, Belle looked terribly upset.

“No wonder you hate him.”

“Hmm.” Regina frowned and, hesitantly, lifted her hand to rest it over Belle’s. “Hate is the wrong word. There are no words in the tongues of man or beast for what Rumple and I are to one another but we are something…connected.”

“But…he ruined you. I know his reasons –and please don’t ask me for they are not mine to tell- but it’s still probably his greatest crime. He destroyed you. I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I regret none of it.” Regina smiled when Belle gaped at her. “Close your mouth, dear, you’ll catch flies.”

Belle clicked her teeth together.

“Without Rumple, I’d have withered away into nothing. Without him, I’d have been powerless. Without him I could not have cast the curse, I could not have brought us here, I couldn’t have found Henry and I wouldn’t have gotten Daniel back. I am the happiest I have ever been. Everything I have suffered up until now…I’d pay that price again. A hundred times over, to have Henry and Daniel in my life again.”

Belle frowned at that, having difficulty trying to imagine if she could be so generous had their situations been switched.

“Oh, make no mistake, I’ll kill him if he crosses me again, but I now have better things to do than go around looking for excuses to ruin his day.” Regina grinned and Belle gave a confused laugh.

“By the gods, you’re bonding.” Rumple limped into the clearing and glared down at Regina.

Both sorcerers were surprised when Belle surged to her feet and prodded Rumple in the chest so hard he nearly overbalanced.

“You need to tell her.”

Regina scrambled to her feet too, so as to be better prepared to leap out of the way should Rumple decide this was all her fault (not out of character for him) and waited tensely for him to respond.

“Belle…”

“No excuses!” Belle levelled a finger in his face and he wisely leaned back from it. “You did terrible things to her and she doesn’t even know _why._ ”

Rumple glared at Regina, who was staring at Belle like she had grown another head. She caught Rumple looking at her and held up both hands.

“I did absolutely nothing to engender sympathy from her.” Regina hunched her shoulders in a shrug.

“It’s none of her business.” Rumple turned his attention back to Belle.

“She’ll understand!” Belle threw up her hands. “You two are more alike than either of you want to admit. Tell her why you did it, all of it.”

Rumple scowled at her and Belle folded her arms over her chest.

“Tell her or I will.”

Regina’s brows rose in surprise and she looked over at Rumple. She jerked her thumb at Belle and arched a brow, silently asking if the girl was serious.

Rumple let a long sigh leak from him and nodded. She was deadly serious.

Regina looked over at Belle again and just didn’t know what to make of it at all. Truth be told, she’d much rather wheedle the information out of Rumple herself. There was no _challenge_ if it was freely given.

She was saved from getting into it by a rustling of the undergrowth.

Both she and Rumple whirled, hands gilded in magic, and seethed out a breath of relief when they saw it was no one more threatening than David.

“Am I late for the ass kicking?” David stepped fully into the clearing and blinked when he noticed Belle was there too. He had not expected the librarian to be part of their little soiree.

“No…you’re a little early.” Regina straightened from her ready pose and dusted her hands off like a cat might lick its belly to recover its dignity. “Is Henry with Daniel?”

“He and Ruby are teaching our smallest knight how to spar. He was being knocked clean across the yard, giggling like a fool, when I left.”

Regina managed a half smile for that. It was becoming real. The pressure of the impending confrontation began to weigh on her fiercely.

“So…what’s the plan?”

“We wait.” Regina offered a slightly stronger smile to David. “Miss Swan and Snow will go up against my mother and they will fail. She will create a portal and come through here. We trap her and then Snow and Miss Swan should be free travel after her unmolested.”

“In theory.” Rumple muttered.

Regina inhaled a deep breath and nodded.

“In theory.”

“Thank you.” David spoke quietly and Regina turned to him with a slight frown. She smirked.

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You have and you will. So, before the lightning bolts start flying, thank you.”

Regina watched him for a long moment and then one side of her mouth lifted in a smirk. She nodded.

“You’re welcome…before the lightning bolts start flying.”

Her smile vanished and she spun as if startled by a sound only Rumple could hear as well. The Dark One spun on his heel to stare at the well too and both of them glared at the little pile of bricks, tension stretching taut between them.

“What is it?” Belle gripped Rumple’s hand, whispering to him. “What’s happening?”

It was Regina that answered.

“She’s coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I admit it. 
> 
> The main reason you got so many updates is because I wanted to leave you on this cliffhanger.
> 
> MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm at war with myself over this. 
> 
> The pacing demands that the chapters be spaced out but the readers demand that they NOT and I diiiiid want to get it all up to date before Season 4B started for...reasons that I shall not share right now cuz spoilers for those of you that haven't read it. 
> 
> Ah, fuck it, have 'em all.

**Chapter 36 – Dragons Abound**

**_The Well_ **

 

It began with a low crackle of energy. Like static electricity on steroids. It snapped and burst from the well in tiny forks and pops. A strong smell like burnt sugar permeated the air and a heavy ozone like quality pressed down on them.

Regina’s jaw was clenched, her hands clawed at her sides with motes and spark of her own magic slithering over them. Her breathing was rigidly controlled though she wanted to pant with harsh panicked breaths so badly that she shivered on every inhale.

This was it. The confrontation she had spent her entire adult life avoiding and it was about to crawl out of that well and more than likely tear lumps out of her again.

Regina gulped hard, watching the well spark and smoke with green plumes of magic. Portals between worlds were no small feat and it struck her then how _insanely_ powerful she was that she had managed to conjure and entire town and drag three whole kingdoms’ worth of people here with her. True, the heart of the thing she had loved most had been a hefty sacrifice…but the effort should have killed her even then.

It only occurred to her then that Rumple may well have believed that the Curse would have destroyed her outright.

The thought of his consternation at her survival made her give a nervous kind of smile.

She was a survivor. She clung to that. She had survived Curses, firing squads, tears in her soul, losing Daniel, her marriage to Leopold and even befriending Charming.

She could survive her mother.

…even if she was the physical manifestation of everything Regina feared most. Even if she was the single greatest threat to Regina’s happiness to have ever walked any world. Even with all that she would _win._

Simply because she couldn’t afford to lose.

Regina flinched badly when warm fingers encircled hers.

She looked down at her hand, seeing the much larger masculine hand wrapped around it and looked up, expecting to see David on the other end.

Regina could only stare and blink somewhat dimwittedly when she saw Rumple standing there.

He looked over at her, their eyes meeting for a long stretched moment.

The wind had picked up, tearing at their hair and clothing, drawing them towards the well. The trees bowed and creaked overhead, the branches whipping and the sharp scent of pine seemed to fill Regina’s head.

The air was _so_ heavy and it seemed that the entire world –for just a moment- crystalized.

It was her and her mentor –not her tormentor- that stood ready to face their foe. Together. Shoulder to shoulder.

As equals.

Regina nodded once, swallowing hard. She turned her hand in his, lacing their fingers together and –this time- when she let out a breath it was slow and steady. She closed her eyes, breathing in that sharp alpine scent that she had come to associate with home, and opened her eyes again.

They _burned_ from her head with a neon purple light. Even the whites of her eyes had turned the deep indigo of the night sky. Silver sparks flew from her lashes and something very like heat haze rose from her skin.

Rumple turned to face the well too. His skin looked odd, shimmering in the flare of Regina’s magic. Not the burnished golden scales he’d had as the imp but not healthy pink human skin either. His hair looked distinctly messier and his eyes were that burning red gold that had shone madness over so many dark deals in his time. The faerie wand in his hand –stolen through murder decades ago- shone as brightly as Regina’s eyes.  His dagger would have been better but he would not draw it out from hiding even for the threat of Cora.

Especially not when her daughter stood like a nova at his side, ready to rend the world in half to imprison Cora if it came to it.

Were Rumple the type, he might almost feel sorry for the sorceress. She had _no_ idea the trouble she was walking into.

The well was almost on fire with magic now. The rumble of a swirling portal tearing a tunnel between worlds shook the ground, rattling them to their bones.

David had Belle shielded behind him and they stood back a ways. He kept the librarian behind him and she gripped his flannel shirt in both hands. He could feel her panicked breaths gusting hot against his back and he could identify with the feeling.

The Evil Queen and the Dark One were scared enough to _hold hands_. To pool their strength with a physical connection.

David reconsidered the merit of being on Henry guarding duty and then steeled himself.

He mulled over the words Regina had spoken to him last night. He wasn’t just David Nolan, he was Prince Charming. He was an idea. He was more than a man and –today- he had to live up to the legend.

He wasn’t going to let them down. Not Emma, not Snow, not the town and not Regina.

David ground his teeth when the sound of the portal got louder and louder and louder and _louder._ It got so loud that it passed beyond the range of his hearing. He could feel it as a pressure against his skin, a ringing in his ears. He winced and ground his teeth to keep from crying out at the pressure of it all.

Then it stopped.

It stopped so suddenly that David thought his eardrums had given out and he’d gone deaf but the pressure of the magic was gone too and he could hear Belle sucking in a breath to hold behind him.

The silence boomed throughout the clearing, the magic suddenly snuffed and the only thing that seemed to move was the magic flickering from Regina and Rumple.

Regina lifted her arm, her hand rolling on her wrist and a fireball as large as her head exploded white hot hovering over her fingers.

A hand clapped over the lip of the well and both Regina and Rumple hauled back, prepared to strike.

They both faltered with a sound of surprise when a familiar blonde head appeared over the lip of the well.

“Heh!” Emma laughed, hauling herself up out of the well and stumbling somewhat gracelessly onto the raised dais. “Nothing to it.”

She didn’t notice them to begin with, didn’t notice Regina and Rumple gaping at her and then at one another.

Regina pointed wordlessly at the well and Rumple hunched his shoulders in a silent shrug.

“You alright?” Emma turned, leaning down into the well again and helping Mary Margaret out.

Regina snapped out of it first.

“Where is she?!”

Emma spun, eyes wide and looking slightly alarmed when Regina stalked towards her in full on Evil Queen mode.

Magic hissed and sparked from her skin and clothes, her eyes were the wrong colour and she looked _pissed._

“Mary Margaret, if you still have Mulan’s sword, feel free to pass it along.” Emma murmured to her mother and Snow scrambled the rest of the way out of the well.

“Where is she?” Regina demanded again, her teeth bared. She didn’t come straight at them, prowling in a wide arc towards the well instead. “My mother. Why isn’t she here?”

“Cora?” Emma stammered a little, put off by Regina looking so dangerous. She’d never seen the Queen use magic. She’d had no idea it would look like this.

This being pant wettingly terrifying.

“She’s back in the Enchanted Forest. We won.”

“You _what?!”_ Regina thundered. “You weren’t supposed to WIN! You were supposed to put up a good fight and then get your asses kicked, leaving her free to come here and walk right into our trap!” Regina waved expansively and Emma ducked back out of range.

“Um, sorry?”

“Damn right you should be sorry!” Regina very nearly screamed. “Now we have no idea where she is! She’s running loose somewhere in the Enchanted Forest or she’s found another way to get here and we have no idea WHERE!”

“Regina, stop it!” Snow snapped, pushing her way in front of Emma and Regina snarled –actually snarled- when confronted with the other woman. Whatever Snow had been about to say was cut off when Regina thrust a finger at her face so violently that she nearly gave Snow a third nostril.

“One word out of you and I’ll…” Regina growled again, slowly curling her hand into a fist. “Never mind.”

She spun away, trying to shake off her rage, her fright at the Charmings screwing up ANOTHER one of her schemes. She trotted down the steps to the forest floor and looked over at Rumple. He stood with Belle, covering it perhaps a little better, but he looked just as harassed as she did. He shook his head subtly.

He had no idea what to do either.

“Charming!”

Regina nearly rolled her eyes at the gleeful shout from Snow though she did manage something of a smirk when she saw David’s face light up at his wife eventually noticing him. He took a step towards the well and then it all went completely to shit.

Regina realised too late the trap she had set was still ready to spring.

She spun on her heel, already shouting, but Snow and Emma –who she had been dragging down the steps towards David- had already stumbled onto the wardstone.

“NO!” Regina bolted forward, as if that would make a difference, and cursed fluently when she ran smack into the barrier that sprang up around the wardstone the instant an intruder stepped into it.

“Gods damn it, is there no limit to your idiocy?!” Regina yelled at them and thumped her fist against the barrier for good measure.

It gave a strange burst of noise, like a plastic soccer ball being bounced against the sidewalk, and shimmered green out from the point where she had punched it.

“Regina!” David looked wildly over at her. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing to worry about,” Regina’s voice was tight and she jammed her fingers into the barrier, lighting it up like a Christmas tree, “I only went to all this effort to have your wife and daughter brought back here so they may be _eaten_ on our home soil.”

“What?!” Snow hurried across the wardstone, which could now be clearly seen due to the runes and symbols carved into it flaming to life and burning through the dirt that covered it. “Eaten?!”

“Yes.” Regina growled. “ _Eaten_.”

Regina thrummed power into the barrier and more symbols and runes flared into existence in the air. The entire wall of magic flared into a hazy green life, golden symbols burning from it, and Regina studied them.

Damn it, this was Maleficent’s own magic. Maleficent was a dragon upwards of three thousand years old. She had watched civilisations rise and fall, she had eaten stars and flown to the moon once for a bet. She was a higher form of dragon.

She had also steadfastly refused to share more than the bare minimum of her spellwork with Regina. Her paranoia demanded nothing less than as much secrecy as she could realistically maintain so Regina’s level of understanding for this magic was slightly less than diddly.

“Oh _shit._ ” Regina murmured, staring at the magic. “RUMPLE!”

“Right here.” He appeared at her side, propelled there by Belle and none too pleased about it. “Something amiss?”

“I don’t suppose you can read Draconean?”

“Not to be an alarmist,” Emma called from within the barrier, “but it’s a little dusty in here and it seems to be –well- alive.”

“Think happy thoughts!” Regina called back and spoke to Rumple again. “It’s a combination lock, isn’t it? Mal loved her puzzles.”

“Yes she did.” Rumple leaned back, studying the spell and shook his head. “I know a word here and a pictogram there but…there isn’t time.”

Regina stared at him.

“There’s ALWAYS a way.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with the prince.” Rumple scowled at her.

“No, that was the first lesson YOU taught me. That I had power and –with power- there was always a way to get what I wanted. I want them out of there. Now. Make it happen.”

Rumple huffed out a breath through his nose and then thumped his cane into the ground, punching it into the earth so that it stood without him holding it up. He lifted the faerie wand and looked at her. It still pulsed and thrummed with the magic of an entire cavern filled with diamonds.

“Seriously, Regina, what the hell is in here with us?” Emma appeared directly in front of her and Regina looked up, meeting her eyes.

“Who, not what.”

“Fine. Who’s in here with us?”

Regina looked at Rumple, frowning, wishing there was another way. She nodded sharply.

“Maleficent.” Regina looked up at Emma. “Try and stay towards the edges of the stone, she’s going to manifest in the middle.”

“Maleficent the…”

“Don’t say it!”    

“…dragon?”

Regina’s shoulders slumped and she let out a slow seething breath.

“Are you _sure_ you want to save them?” Rumple grumbled at her.

“Well, I’m committed now.” Regina’s hand closed over his around the base of the wand and –before either of them could think better of it- she plunged it into the barrier around the wardstone.

Both she and Rumple cried out at the magical backlash that whipped them both but they held on. Now they really were committed.

“Come on, Dark One.” Regina gritted out and added her other hand to her grip on the wand. She pulled on it so hard that she lifted both feet off the ground and hung from it with her full weight. “Put your back into it.”

“Remind me to kill you later.” Rumple spoke from behind bared teeth and he added his weight, both magical and physical, to the pull.

Regina jerked in surprise when strong arms bracketed hers and male hands closed over hers around the wand.

This time it was David and he was more than determined enough for all of them.

With a single grunt of effort, Prince Charming threw his entire weight behind the wand and dragged it through dragon magic written before the rise of the Roman Empire. Magic that was immovable under the combined weight of the Evil Queen, the Dark One and a hefty dose of faerie magic.

Good thing no one had ever told David that it was unbreakable.

“Seriously though, there’s bones in here with us. Big bones.” Emma appeared on the other side of the barrier again. Her voice louder through the tear.

It was now a whole three inches long and –under the pressure of three powerful magical figures hauling on it- growing in length.

Regina risked a glance through the haze of the barrier and she could make out the bones of a dragon forming from the ash within the wardstone.

It was a trap designed to bind Maleficent in any form. The trauma of dying must have brought her back as the wraith that Regina had run from just that morning but then _someone_ had gone and reminded her that –in actual fact- she was a dragon.

Great. Just great.

“Oh goody, now there’s muscles.” Emma spoke with an over bright tone and Regina was glad that she didn’t have the breath to spare to make a pointed retort. It was fairly obvious they were going as fast as they could.

“Regina…” David’s breath gusted in her ear and she nodded.

“I know.”

It wasn’t going to be fast enough.

The swirling ash tearing up out of the wardstone itself was reforming too quickly. The dragon skeleton was already complete, all but filling the space encompassed by the barrier, crushing Snow and Emma up against it trying to stay out of the way. Muscle and sinew formed strand by strand right before their eyes. Wings were already rising and flaring, a tail slinking.

Shit.

“Don’t tell Daniel.” Regina gritted, sweat inching down the side of her face and the back of her neck.

“Not a word.” David agreed and Regina took over.

A glance was all it took to have Rumple snatch his hands away from the wand and back off, David released her just as quickly and Regina surged forward.

She switched forms in the blink of an eye. One moment a sorceress, the next a snake slithering through the tiny hole in the barrier and then human again on the other side. Quick enough to reach back through and drag the wand in with her before the hexes in the barrier could heal the wound in half a heartbeat.

Regina staggered, her head swimming from two changes in quick succession and she shook herself hard, clearing her vision and forcing herself to steady through sheer willpower.

“Well, I can’t say this is really an improvement. Now we’re ALL dragon kibble!” Snow waved at the growing body of the dragon throbbing and shivering over them.

“Oh ye of little faith.” Regina snapped at her and flipped the wand in her hand so she held it like a dagger. “I told you, I don’t walk into a trap I can’t get out of.”

Her eyes were purple and indigo again. Silver snapping and flashing like lightning from her eyelashes. Her clothes smoked, heat haze rose from her skin, her hair whipped in a wind that wasn’t there. With a scream Regina surged forward, falling to her knees and stabbing the wand into the wardstone with every iota of strength she possessed.

The resulting sound was like she had just broken the world.

The stone split. A crack racing clean across it from one side to the other. The magic contained within it exploding outwards and tearing the barrier apart like tissue paper. The runes in the stone snuffed into dead rock and all of that magic had to go somewhere.

Pity that it was the hungry form of the dragon that was so handily available to gulp it all down.

Sinew and muscle, mad rolling eyes in a bleached bone skull, spines flaring, wings spreading, scales rupturing over black skin, ivory fangs snapping and clashing, a singing thundering roar and she was there.

Maleficent, Dragon of the West, looked down at them all. Ginormous green and purple eyes blinking, taking in what she was seeing. She looked down at them all with a face blank of recognition…and then she saw Emma.

The world suddenly seemed filled with teeth, so huge was the bite of the dragon, and Maleficent _roared_.

Her wings boomed as they flared wide to their full expanse, her claws threw up rivers of sparks when she raked them over the stone, the spines and plates around her head flared and she charged.

“Move!” Regina body-checked Emma out of the way, sending them both sprawling to the ground in a spray of dirt.

Maleficent’s teeth clashed together an inch from where they hit the ground in that messy sprawl and the dragon shrieked when an arrow pierced her webbed ear.

With a bellowing sound that seemed to shake everything for miles, Maleficent whirled over her tail. Fast, so fast, impossibly fast. She bore down on Snow, eyes on fire with madness and rage.

No one was more shocked than Rumple himself when he moved to the archer’s defence.

The cacophonous blast that he set off next to Maleficent’s ear was loud enough to strain the eardrums of the humans that heard it, to a dragon, it was agonising.

Maleficent reared and clawed at her own head, screaming in pain, and then roared in anger.

She thudded down onto all four legs, her back arching, the rattling sound of air sucked in down her gullet was an awful omen. Rumple and Regina had a handful of moments to react and they both scrambled to save their loved ones.

This morning had not at all gone as they had planned and they’d be damned if anyone was going to die because of their fuck up.

The Evil Queen and the Dark One did not kill by _accident._

Green fire exploded in a mushroom cloud of heat and magic from Maleficent’s gaping maw and Regina managed to clap her hand into Rumple’s just as it bloomed towards them. The shield was hastily thrown together, poorly constructed and ugly but it did the job.

Regina, already weakened from breaking the wardstone, screamed and crashed to one knee but her grip on Rumple’s hand didn’t loosen and her shield did not waver.

The fire splashed against it like a bubbling wall of glass and flared up and around them, setting the nearest trees alight.

The pressure was _tremendous_.

Not just fire, but physical force, heat and a tsunami of magic blasted against the shield. Rumple was sweating, Regina had gone an unhealthy grey colour but neither of them backed down. Their hands were clasped so tightly together that their knuckles shone a lurid white and smoke poured from the connection. The air around them sizzled and –with screaming effort- they both pushed _back_.

The shield suddenly inverted the curve of its dome. Flipping inside out and redirecting all of that magical fire back on its caster. The dome then snapped closed, clapping around Maleficent’s head like a bear trap.

The dragon shrieked, rearing back and clawing at her head again. With a roar of defiance and realising she couldn’t take on two such sorcerers and win, Maleficent spread her wings to their full sixty foot span. She lifted her tail, crouched and then thundered all three of them down at once. Kicking off with her legs with a force powerful enough to be measured on the Richter scale.

Regina and Rumple were sent sprawling, trees were snapped like twigs as Maleficent broke them backwards in her hurry to get by, and Regina could do nothing but watch whilst her maddened best friend surged up into the sky and took to wing…headed right for the town.

Great.

Just great.

 

**_The Park…_ **

 

“Rargh!”

Henry shrieked in a laughing panic when Ruby exploded out of the undergrowth and snatched him up off the ground, tickling him ruthlessly.

“No, no, no, no!” Henry giggled madly, trying to fend off his aunt with frantic scrabbling fingers and she just laughed at him.

She didn’t let up, tickling him until he couldn’t breathe anymore, and finally let him drop still laughing onto the ground.

Henry clutched at his ribs, trying to stop laughing, and only managed to restrain himself to chuckling heartily when a familiar torrent of red hair loomed over him.

“Ye’re no’ verra good at this, ye know.” Merida had her hands caught on her knees and smirked down at him.

“She’s crafty.” Henry panted and held out his hand to her.

Merida grinned and took it in hers, pulling him to his feet.

Ruby had already disappeared again, no doubt lurking somewhere else, waiting to pounce.

It was a game that Daniel had thought up for them.

Ruby was to try and catch them and Henry was to try and turn her attack to his advantage. Either wriggling out of her hold so he could escape or flipping her momentum against her. Daniel had shown him several ways to do it, tumbling Ruby to the ground more than once in his demonstration. It would seem his werewolf aunt was more than willing to exact revenge on Henry for such an insult because he hadn’t been able to escape her once.

“Fast too.” Henry dusted himself off and scanned the surrounding bushes warily. He had NO idea where she had gone. Ruby knew her craft well.

“Well, I think yer no’ dain so good ‘cause yer in her territory.” Merida hitched her bow higher over her shoulder and glanced about the woods with a cursory kind of interest. She wasn’t all that worried, the wolf wasn’t after her after all.

“Yeah, I thought about being in a field would let me at least get a glance at her before she came at me, but she’s too fast.” Henry went carefully still when Merida reached out to him and plucked a leaf from his hair she held it out to him and Henry took it after a bemused moment.

“I wasnae talkin’ about open terrain. I was talkin’ ‘bout her being out of _her_ territory.”

“What do you mean?” Henry still held the leaf, wondering what he was supposed to do with it.

Merida, with nothing more than a smirk for her answer, pointed up.

Henry craned his neck back and made a face.

“The last time I was in a tree, it didn’t end so well for me.”

“It’s either that or get tickled til ye pass out.”

“To the trees!” Henry punched his fist in the air, stuffed the leaf into his pocket, and then hurled himself towards the nearest climb-friendly looking trunk.

He wasn’t very good at climbing trees, he hadn’t been allowed to do it before now and hadn’t really had much inclination to try anyway, but he gamely struggled up into the branches anyway.

Merida –of course- could climb like a freaking squirrel.

“Come on.”

Henry forgave her for it when she levelled that beaming smile at him, closed her fingers about his wrist, and pulled him up onto the branch beside her.

“I don’t think this is gonna do much good. She can jump pretty high.” Henry shifted to sit on the branch and looked down into the bushes below. He couldn’t see Ruby but he had fast realised that he couldn’t trust his eyes to warn him of her approach.

“Aye, but she doesnae want tae really hurt ye. She’ll be wary of draggin’ ye down off the branch and tumblin’ ye on the floor.”  

“Henry?”

“Shh!” Henry suddenly clapped his hand over Merida’s mouth before she could call back to Daniel and they both remained perfectly still when the man came into view.

He strolled along the path beneath the trees and Henry looked sideways at Merida and slowly pulled his hand away from her mouth. He jerked his head towards Daniel and then bobbed his eyebrows.

Merida grinned wickedly and they both crouched on the branch and waited.

Daniel ambled closer and closer, still calling for Henry, and Henry and his friend waited.

He was almost directly below them now.

“Now!” Henry hurled himself from the branch and plummeted towards Daniel, Merida hot on his heels.

Daniel twisted, looking up, his eyes flashing green for an instant. He moved to duck back out of the way before he realised the two dark shapes falling on him were children and then he lunged to catch them.

Daniel grunted with catching one then the other of them in an arm each and was woefully unprepared for a third attacker.

“Rargh!” Ruby howled with laughter and tackled Daniel about the waist, dragging him to the ground. She began to ruthlessly tickle him. “Get him!”

With fearsome war cries, Merida and Henry fell on Daniel too and added their fingers to the assault on his ribs. George bounded out of the shrubbery too and licked enthusiastically at Daniel’s face, forcing him to lift both hands to fend the wolf off, leaving his ribs defenceless. 

Daniel laughed, a deep and rich sound and squirmed, trying to get away from them but it was no use.

In fact, they were all laughing and giggling until Ruby suddenly surged to her feet and spun, looking towards the edge of the park.

Henry and Merida stilled and Daniel caught his breath, looking up at Ruby.

“What is it?”

“Explosion.” Ruby murmured. “Magic, lots of it and…”

Ruby tilted her head back and sniffed. She frowned and snorted in surprise at whatever it was she could smell. She shook her head and then even went up on her toes when she took another deep breath through her nose. She rocked down onto the flats of her feet and blinked, eyes wide.

“Oh _shit._ ”

“What?” Daniel got to his feet, lifting the edge of his tee shirt to wipe the wolf drool from his neck and jaw.

“I don’t think it’s going well.” Ruby’s voice was so low that only Daniel’s much keener ears could make out what she said.

“Why?”

“Because I can smell a _dragon_.” Ruby answered lower than whisper quiet again.

Daniel’s brows rose and then he closed his eyes on a wince.

“A surprise her mother will never see coming…” Daniel groaned, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. He seethed out a breath and looked down at Henry. “Your mother is insane.”

Henry shrugged and then waved between himself and Daniel.

“We’ve been over this; she’s adorable. It makes up for a lot.”

Daniel, despite himself, smirked.

“Aye, that she is.” Daniel gripped Merida and Henry by a shoulder each and steered them towards the gates of the park. “Time for lunch. We’re going to Granny’s.”

“We just had lunch.” Henry protested.

“An afternoon snack then.” Daniel didn’t stop propelling them towards the street beyond the park.

“Mum says I’ve no’ tae ruin ma dinner.” Merida pointed out and Daniel sighed.

“When have you _ever_ wanted to obey your mother?”

“Jist sayin’.” Merida held up her hands in surrender.

Daniel managed to herd them out onto the street and then stiffened when even _he_ could smell it.

Magic, fire and dragon.

His eyes flashed green when Hyde suddenly took an interest in the world around him. The last time he had gone up against a dragon, he’d done quite well, it had been a good afternoon’s sport.

He saw the shadow first.

It spread over the street, completely spanning it and the buildings on either side. A razor sharp silhouette of slinking body and long neck.

Daniel spun and looked up his eyes went wide when he was confronted with an honest to gods dragon.

It stooped on the town, headed for the street. Its scales were black and purple, shining in the sunlight, eyes glowing like green and purple lanterns and jaws parting wide enough to swallow a pickup truck.

The dragon roared so loudly that Merida screamed in fright and Ruby had grown fur before she could get herself under control.

The great dragon was no dumb beast.

It scanned the street, looking for a ready target and her eyes landed on Daniel, Ruby and the children. A long green tongue snaked over sword like teeth and a thrumming resonant sound rumbled through the air.

Daniel got angry rather than frightened when he realised she was _laughing._

“Not today.” Daniel growled and ran out into the middle of the road. He had no idea what he was about to do until he did it but it was no less impressive for it.

He sucked in a deep breath.

The dragon liked roars? Fine. His was bigger.

Daniel opened his mouth and he suddenly had too many teeth. His eyes glowed a paler green than the dragon’s and _his_ bellow blew out the windows of every single car parked on the street.

The dragon squawked in surprise, twisting in the air and flapping hard. She glared down at Daniel, his chest steaming from the fiery burning of the scar under his shirt and he snarled right back at her.

The dragon banked away, screaming and roaring in anger, but not willing to take on something that was so small and yet had such a gigantic voice.

With a shriek, she flapped harder, regaining altitude to circle the town and pick an easier target.

Daniel, for his part, stood panting in the street. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. That had been pushing it. He’d damn near ripped his throat with his own voice he’d screamed so hard. He’d not be able to do it again.

He turned to look back at Ruby, standing in front of Merida and Henry, shielding them with her body. He jogged back over to her scrubbed the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. We need to get them to safety. Fast. I don’t want them here if she comes around for another pass.”

“True that. Granny’s still?”

“I think it best, she’s closest and at least she has that crossbow of hers.”

“Screw that, there’s a damn shotgun under the till.” Ruby scoffed but she was nervous, watching the sky.

“You run ahead with them. I’ll follow.”

“Daniel, what about my mom?” Henry grabbed his hand, eyes wide and worried. “If the dragon’s here…what happened to her?”

“Your mum’s still alive.” Daniel bent and took Henry by the shoulder, looking right into his eyes. “I’d KNOW if she was hurt. I’d feel it too.”

“What can you feel now?”

Daniel’s gaze focussed inward even as magic shimmered over Ruby and she stood towering over George and the children in her dire wolf form.

Daniel smirked.

“I can feel that she’s very, _very_ , annoyed.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Henry grinned and stepped onto Ruby’s paw when she lifted it to act as a step for him. He slung himself up onto her back and settled himself over her shoulders, gripping thick handfuls of fur.  

“I cannae be the only one that remembers the last time her nibs went and got annoyed, she punted us clean through to ‘nuther dimension.” Merida threw up her hands.

“She’s sworn off world hopping.” Daniel hooked his hands under Merida’s arms and lifted her up to straddle Ruby’s back. The werewolf stood patiently whilst the girl looked down at the unfamiliar animal beneath her and then looked wildly at Daniel.

“This is nothing like a horse.”

“It’s okay.” Henry reached back and took Merida’s hands, drawing them about his waist. “Hold on tight to me and I’ll hold onto Ruby. She’ll never drop us.”

Ruby gave a chuff of agreement and looked over at Daniel.

“I’ll be fine. Right behind you. Just get them to safety.”

Ruby nodded shortly and then she was gone, nothing but a whoop of Henry’s laughter and Merida’s squeak of alarm left in the wake of her paws pattering over the street. George hot on their heels.

Daniel, for his part, looked up at the skies and saw the dark shadow of the dragon circling overhead.

He hadn’t lied to Henry when he’d said Regina was annoyed, he could feel that, but he could also feel that she was scared, angry and looking for someone to take it out on.

He almost hoped that Emma and Snow hadn’t made it back.

For their sakes.

 

 ** _Meanwhile, At the Well…_**             

 

“Well,” Regina raised her arm, swiped the sweat from her brow, “this is a fine mess you’ve gotten us into!”

She staggered to her feet with a helping hand from Rumple and weaved a little when she leaned back to look up, trying to follow Maleficent’s flight path.

“Me?!” Emma yelled back. “You’re the one that brought the dragon!”

“I was going to use it to trap my mother!” Regina shoved her hands through her hair. This was ridiculous. Swan had been back for all of five seconds before she had managed to balls up everything Regina had spent the day working on.

“Regina, she’s going to destroy the town!” David approached her.

“Shut up.” She slapped him on the chest, ignoring or not seeing the way Snow stiffened. “I’m thinking.”

“Don’t do it, dearie. Those spells are not to be sacrificed.”

“Of course not.” Regina snapped at him. “Had I wanted the town destroyed, I wouldn’t bother stopping Maleficent.” She rubbed a hand over her face.

He was right, the power she did have left was to be reserved for keeping everything else in check. They were reserves of power, wards within her own bones, she’d have to shatter her own body in order to unlock them, her own death curse.

Still, she was smart, they were nowhere near that desperate.

A roar split the air, echoing up from within the town and Regina’s shoulders hunched. Her eyes wide and she spun to look towards the town.

“Hyde.” She murmured.

“Who?” Snow frowned but Rumple’s question took precedence.

“The beast has killed dragons before, could he take this one?”

“Maleficent’s a higher drake, sentient. Hyde took on a wyvern.” Regina shook her head. She jerked her thumb at David. “Hell, even Charming managed to kill one of them.”

“Any time you feel like helping rather than insulting me would be great, Regina.” David heckled her and she slapped him on the chest again.

“Quiet you.” She was back into that sightless staring way of thinking from which her best and maddest ideas often sprang forth.

“Stop that.” Snow went to step between Regina and David but her husband moved her out of the way. He knew Regina wasn’t paying attention and would likely slap Snow if she blindly struck out at him again.

It wouldn’t be hard, but he didn’t want a needless fight between the two women.  

“You can shut up as well.” Regina was staring at the wardstone, her focus turned inward. Think, think, think.

What could overpower a dragon?

Another dragon?

That was the immediate thought. There were very few beasts that could actually take on one of the monsters and not instantly die. Especially a dragon as smart as Maleficent was.

Charming had taken on a lower form of drake and –even then- he’d had the advantage of geography. They were surrounded by miles upon miles of kindling, not to mention, if they took the battle into town there would be hundreds of handy human nuggets for Maleficent to gorge on and build up her strength.

Besides, that was all academic, Regina had never shifted into a dragon and neither she nor Rumple had the power left to do so.

In fact –annoyingly so- the only one with any kind of power was…

“What?” Emma frowned when all of Regina’s considerable focus was directed at her.

“You’re magical.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Regina snapped her fingers and advanced on her. “The hat! You did that, not me. You kickstarted my magic then, you’re a power source. Very powerful…are you afraid of heights?”

“What?”

“This won’t hurt.” Regina reached out faster than Emma could stop her and gripped the Saviour by the ears. “Probably.”

“What?”

“Go limp.” Regina’s eyes flashed a lurid purple, the whites of her eyes turning indigo again. Her hands began to glow. No, Emma’s skin began to glow where Regina touched her. “Don’t fight me.”

“What?!”   

Heat suffused Emma, light pouring from her, blindingly so. Emma tried to open her mouth, to ask what Regina had done, but all that came out was a gargled sound that was something between animal and human.

Emma flinched and tried to twist and see what had made the sound but Regina’s grip was immovable. The light got brighter and brighter.

 Snow was babbling something about Regina being an evil bitch and to unhand her child this INSTANT, but Regina was rather busy and trusted David to keep the annoying little chit out of her way. She had closed her eyes, sensing through magic since the blinding light had rendered her eyes useless, and pressed her lips together in concentration.

The well of power within the vaunted Saviour was truly impressive. She was very strong, another student that was probably going to end up coming her way –Regina resigned herself to it. Pre-death curses and Daniel, Swan would have been close to Regina’s equal if not stronger.

There!

Regina stepped back, blinking the pink spots in her vision away and looked up at her handiwork.

“Not bad.” She mused. “A little small but…not bad. Can you move at all, Miss Swan?” Regina called out to her.

Emma –the dragon- crouched hunched on the ground. Her sinuous neck pulled back on itself, her long jaw and chin tucked in close and her eyes squeezed shut. Magic crackled over golden scales, around ivory horns and sparked over her webbed downturned ears.

“Open your eyes and look at me.” Regina tried again.

One eye, the size of Regina’s head, opened. It was a lurid blue in colour and gleamed with magic. The dragon scowled and opened its mouth, a torrent of sound issuing forth.

Regina frowned and watched a forty foot dragon start to freak out. She pursed her lips and huffed out a sigh through her nose. They didn’t have time for this.

Emma lifted one clawed forepaw and then the other, staring at the hand-like appendages like they belonged to someone else. She reared back, another squealing roar spilling from over her forked tongue. She started to overbalance but dragon instinct took over and her tail and wings whipped out to steady her. Emma nearly twisted her head right off turning to look at them and then –with a terrifying glower- Emma turned back on Regina.

Regina stood unaffected under the howling that blasted out of Emma’s mouth that was now big enough to swallow Regina without the woman touching the sides.

Emma sat back on her haunches and started flailing with her forelegs and wings, her tail lashing and cracking against trees unheeded. She continued all the while to spout nonsense gargles, hisses and snarls until finally thundering forward onto all fours and roaring in Regina’s face so loud as to blast her hair back in the fierce bellow.

“Stop that!” Regina’s patience reached a very full stop and she walloped Emma on her dragon nose, ignoring how it took the skin off her knuckles. “I don’t speak dragon and –oh, good grief! Have you been eating _chimera_?!” Regina pawed at the air in front of her as if to wave away a stench so bad it was a solid object. “Do you have any idea how chimeras _live?_ And you ate one?!”

Regina clapped a hand over her mouth and forced her gag reflex to stop flexing. She mustered herself under control and then glared up at Emma like all of this was her fault. Which –if anyone at all cared about Regina’s opinion- it was.

Emma scowled and started to warble and growl again and Regina reached right into her mouth, ignoring the flashing ivory fangs, and snatched her tongue in a firm grip.

Emma the dragon made a sound something like ‘grouwp!’ and quailed at the touch. Regina held the tongue gently but firmly, emphasising each word with a small tug, forcing Emma to shuffle forward an inch at a time in an awkward crouch.

“Are you quite finished?”

Emma very carefully nodded.

“Good.” Regina did not let go of her tongue. “Now, this is what we’re going to do; you’re going to fly up into the sky and get me close enough to Maleficent in order to talk to her.”

Emma made a kind of crooning sound that rose in a question.

“I’m going to talk her down because I don’t want to kill her. I will if I have to, but she is one of my oldest friends. She doesn’t deserve to die at my hand. I’ve done enough to torment her.”

Emma made another grumbling sound and Regina smirked.

“My dear, there are entire _worlds_ filled with things you have missed.” Regina let go of Emma’s tongue and the dragon wasted no time in rearing back, working her mouth and tongue like a dog with a spoonful of peanut butter. “That taste that you find so alien is breeding, dear. First class breeding.”

Regina smirked when Emma the dragon glowered at her.

“Now, get down here so I can get on.”

“Charming, let go!”

Regina belatedly tuned into the scuffle going on behind her and turned to see David with his arms wrapped around Snow trying to hold her back. Regina was confused for a moment and then thought about how she might react to someone turning Henry into a dragon.

Never mind that her son would more than likely be delighted with such a thing, Regina would leave nothing left of the perpetrator save a greasy stain on the floor. If they were lucky.

“Snow.” Regina adopted the tone she had used when she had been the princess’ mother. Scolding her like a child.

Snow hesitated, going still in David’s grip.

“She’s not hurt, I’ll turn her back when we’re done.” Regina turned back to Emma, ignoring Snow’s dumbfounded look. “Now, time to do some of that saving that everyone’s talking about.”

Regina beckoned Emma closer with both hands, getting the transformed woman to crouch low. Pressing a hand to her scales, Regina drew on the untapped well of power again and the golden shockwave of Emma’s magic rolled over her and the dragon both.

A simple leather saddle appeared at the base of Emma’s neck over her shoulders and a golden suit of armour conjured itself over Regina. Regina eyed the shining gold and ivory plating with a little distaste. Gaudy but –she could feel- it would shield her from most impacts and a great deal of heat. Emma would naturally be fireproof in her current form.

Without wasting any more time, Regina slung herself up onto the saddle and gripped the leather handle on the pommel. Unable to resist, she sank her heels into Emma’s sides.

“Giddy up!”

Emma twisted to look at her with a sapphire glare and Regina clapped the visor of her helmet up.

“Fly, idiot!”

Emma made a confused sound.

“Open your wings and flap. Don’t think too hard –not that I imagine that will be a problem for you- the dragon body will do the rest.”

Emma grumbled, turning away from Regina, and opened her wings with the air of someone humouring a difficult child.

David, knowing what was about to happen, grabbed Snow and dragged her back out of range. Rumple did the same with Belle, who had gaped silently at the entire spectacle.

Emma unfurled huge wings, so big they blocked the light from falling on everyone in the clearing, and weakly lowered them.

Something deep in the reptilian part of Emma’s brain clicked and they shot up again immediately. Her entire body coiled in a low crouch, her wings and her tail lifting and all of them lashed down with a concussive force at the same time as she pushed off with her legs.

Regina laughed, snapping down the visor of her helm, when they shot upwards. Branches and trees bent and crackled backwards in their passing, glancing off the thick scales on Emma’s hide and they burst up into the grey cloak of the Storybrooke sky. The ground fell away from them, the forms of her parents, Rumple and Belle, shrinking to tiny insect like figures.

Emma’s eyes were wide, her legs tucked up close to her body as it moved seemingly of its own accord. As a person, she didn’t know the first thing about flying, but as a dragon, the instincts took over and it was as natural as breathing. Her wings clapped through the air with a boom like thunder, her entire body undulating with the movement. She barely felt Regina’s weight on her back even though the other woman had to be wearing armour that weighed the same as a Buick. Her tail swung out as a rudder in time with the dipping of her wings. She could measure the currents of the air playing over her scales.

Her senses were amazing. She could see for miles, smell even further, she felt the wind like most people felt hot and cold and could taste the tempting currents of updrafts and thermals that would rocket her into the sky way above the clouds.

“There she is.”

Emma heard Regina easily, even over the whip of the wind, the boom of her wings and the tinny distortion of her helmet. Regina’s leg shifted against her side, pressing to indicate where she meant. It wasn’t like Emma could look back to see where she was pointing.

Emma turned her head, her body following, and beat her wings harder.

There, high above them, so high she was just a birdlike silhouette in the sky, Maleficent circled over the town.

“Higher, get closer to her.”

Emma snarled a reply and angled herself to one of those updrafts. Her wings filled with the rising air, she angled herself and they shot upwards, hurried even further by the beating of Emma’s wings.

The power, the strength, Emma had never felt anything like it. She felt like she could fly to the moon and back. This was magic, this was what it was, what it could do. Not just hurt people, but it could let her _fly._ If Emma really did have magic, if she could learn to do this herself…she might almost be willing to learn.

“Focus, Miss Swan, don’t get lost in there.” Regina’s voice brought her back to herself. “I know it’s tempting, but you have to remember you are a woman, not a dragon.”

Emma made a crooning reply, frustrated with her vocal cords and tongue. She knew her lips wouldn’t be up to shaping words, but parrots could speak and they only had beaks, didn’t they? She had read somewhere that it was actually a very complex form of whistling and mimicry.

 ** _“You owe me huge for this._** ”

Emma’s wings faltered at the sound of her own voice, massive, crackling and alien, but it had come from her. They dropped sharply when she stiffened in surprise and she forgot. She forgot how to fly.

“Don’t remember that much!” Regina got over her surprise at Swan being able to figure out how to speak as a dragon pretty damn quickly and clung to the saddle. “Wings, Miss Swan, you have wings!”

“ **Right! Right!** ” Emma flapped again, regaining their altitude in seconds. “ **I got this.** ”

“Very clever.” Regina allowed grudgingly. “You’re a natural.”

“ **Outstanding**.” Emma scanned for Maleficent again and smelled her before she saw her, angling herself again, she gave chase. “ **How do you wanna play this?** ”

“I need you to get above her. Quickly, up into the clouds.”

Emma didn’t waste her breath replying and saved it for doubling her pace. It was easier with the thermals to help her and she shot into the damp grey of the clouds within seconds.

“You should be able to see her, dragons can sense heat.”

Emma dipped her nose and scanned beneath her. She zeroed in on Maleficent easily. It wasn’t seeing –per se- it was somewhere between smelling and feeling a pressure against her skin.

Still, Maleficent gave off heat like a bonfire on a winter night. She stuck out, even through the cool of the cloud cover, and Emma angled her wings, moving to circle her.

“ **She’s right below us.** ”

“Directly?”

“ **Pretty much.** ”

“Good.” Regina shifted her weight and Emma barely felt it. “If this doesn’t work, try and catch me before I splatter.”

“ **What?!** ”

But Regina had already flung herself from Emma’s back and plummeted like a rock.

 


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features my most favourite scene. The scene that convinced me to publish this nonsense bit of fiction. 
> 
> I'm pretty sure you'll know it when you see/read it. 
> 
> Regina's certainly taken aback.

**Chapter 37 – Old Friends and New**

Emma squealed in shock, seeing Regina’s comparatively tiny form arrow itself into a sleek shape and shoot through the clouds like a golden bullet.

Emma folded her wings and dipped her nose, spinning over her tail and stooping like a falcon. She dived after Regina, knowing she would be faster if she just tucked her wings in close and streamlined herself rather than flapping.

Emma burst from the clouds in time to see Regina spread her arms and legs, she must have used a burst of magic because her descent slowed rapidly.

Maleficent, circling the town and trying to figure out what to eat first, felt an inkling of what was to come and reacted on instinct. She caught sight of the glimmer of golden armour falling towards her, whipped her wings, lashed her tail, and rolled onto her back mid-air. She brought all four legs up, claws unsheathed, and gaped her mouth wide. In that position, five of her six ends were pointy.

She was not, however, prepared for _another_ dragon to burst out of the clouds, slink over Regina’s falling form and overtake her. It tackled Maleficent like a twenty tonne linebacker.

Maleficent was flipped by the attack, caught by surprise when the golden dragon’s talons sank into the scales on her shoulders rather than buried its teeth crunching into her throat. She was yanked roughly over and, so focussed on the golden dragon, she didn’t even notice the tiny armoured figure land on her back and cling on for dear life.

Maleficent and the golden dragon tumbled through the air in a tangle of wings and tails. Claws and teeth flashed in the grey light as Maleficent bit and clawed at her opponent. Oddly enough, the golden dragon seemed reluctant to bite her.

It settled for a stunning blow to Maleficent’s nose with its own forehead. Her entire body when slack for one alarming moment and it gave the golden dragon time to clamber around her, climbing over her like a rock. Its talons sunk into her scales, refusing to be budged an inch even when Maleficent bucked and roared, trying to throw it off.

She twisted her sinuous neck, snapping and biting at anything she could get at, though she couldn’t get the angle right and her sword like teeth glanced off shining golden scales.

Gold, really, hardly the colour for any respectable dragon to be.

Maleficent was increasingly aware that the ground and the blocky grey shapes of the town were rushing up towards them with an alarming speed. She struggled madly now, beginning to get afraid. The gold dragon intended to smash her into the ground, the full speed of their fall and the weight of the dragon on top of her used to grind her into a meat jam.

The gold dragon would not be budged, climbing onto Maleficent’s back and grabbing her flailing wings in a clawed talon each. Maleficent shrieked in panic and rage when her wings were forced closed and pinned to her shoulders. This was it, she was about to die and she hadn’t even had the chance to get back at Regina.

The roar of panic was cut off when the gold dragon did something she didn’t expect.

It opened its wings and flapped. Hard.

Their fall was slowed dramatically and the gold dragon roared with the effort of trying to lift both of them.

There was no way, it had to know there was no way it could carry both of them. It was smaller than Maleficent and younger, she could sense it, that could be the only reason it would try something so stupid.

But it tried anyway.

It wasn’t until their descent changed from straight down to an angle that Maleficent realised what the other dragon was really about. It wasn’t trying to stop their fall, but control it.

The town rushed closer, they were going to crash into one of the broad roads and Maleficent stretched out her legs automatically, prepared to land and try and save herself enough injury so as not to be killed outright.

All four feet smashed into the road and –far from the soft earth she had been expecting- she found it paved in a hard covering like stone. With a squall of surprise, Maleficent’s legs crumpled beneath her and the golden dragon’s weight both and she crashed into the road chin first. Her nose tore into the road, peeling back the rocky covering like eggshell, sending up sprays of the dirt beneath. The sudden halt flipped both her and the golden dragon sending them tumbling over and over.

The gold dragon was thrown from her like a rider from a bucking horse, sent careening down the road to smash into a tall building with a clock tower (it had been a hell of a day for the library). It crashed clean through the wall and disappeared within, sending rubble and shrapnel everywhere.

Maleficent was a little too occupied trying to break the street with her face in order to notice the tiny armoured figure flung from her back from where it had been clinging between her wings with a yelp. Its arms windmilled in an aborted attempt at flight. It hopped, skipped and bounced over the street like a stone skimming water and finally tumbled to a halt, lying still.

Meanwhile, inside the suit of armour, Regina decided that she was old and tired enough to just lie there for a moment and think about her life. She ached all over. She was going to kill Swan.

She’d had everything under control. Had the stupid Saviour not insisted on interfering, all of this might have been taken care of _above_ the town rather than in it. As it was, they had been on the ground for all of five seconds and Main Street was already trashed.

She was going to get _letters._

Regina catalogued her aches and pains, subtly twitching her limbs and making sure nothing was broken and/or hanging off. All four limbs and head seemed to be present and correct. She had a collection of cuts and bruises from being flung around inside her armour but it had actually managed to protect her from the worst of it. She should have had her neck snapped back there, by all rights, but she managed to get to her hands and knees unaided.

Remind her to add more padding the next time she did this.

Regina tried to stand but changed her mind when her knees buckled and she landed on her ass. Her helmet was fiercely dented and dug into her face and mouth, making it difficult to breathe. She struggled with it a moment but managed to yank it off, sucking in an unhindered breath gratefully.

A deep groan turned her attention to the stunned purple dragon in the street which was getting over said stunning.

She had to admit that –had she not had a plan in place- Miss Swan’s had actually been fairly bright. Not that she’d ever tell idiot number three that, but she’d managed to reduce the speed of impact enough not to kill them all outright and steer them onto the street rather than into the buildings surrounding.

Belle was going to be pretty pissed about the library, but Regina was sure the librarian would manage to think of something to get Rumple to fix it for her because –as soon as this was over- Regina was going to sleep for a _week._

Maleficent groaned, one lurid green eye opening and then the other. She weaved her head up out of where it had been buried in the asphalt, blinking blearily, and shook her head sharply. Presumably to clear her ears of the ringing that also plagued Regina.

Regina cautiously and slowly got to her feet. It probably wasn’t a good idea to be caught right in front of the dragon, even if she was stunned.

Regina carefully, wincing with every movement, managed to rise to a crouch and limped her way towards the side of the street. Hoping to get between the cars that hadn’t been sent flying by skidding dragons and maybe cower for five minutes and hyperventilate a little for good measure.

Surely all this daring-do was for heroes. Regina had no business doing it. She should have put Charming in the damn suit of armour.

Then again, David only had experience in killing dragons, not saving them.

Regina might have made it to her hiding place had her numb fingers not lost their grip on her helmet and sent it clattering to the street with a clang like a bell.

Maleficent’s head snapped around like a cobra’s and her green eyes narrowed at Regina.

Regina smiled nervously and lifted her hand in a weak wave.

“Hi, Mal.”

Maleficent roared and surged to her feet, charging Regina, teeth bared.

Regina would deny it under torture, but she squeaked like a goddamn mouse, turned tail and ran. She could hear the thundering of Maleficent’s claws tearing into the street over the clanging of her suit of armour. Armour which was decidedly not made for running.

Fortunately for Regina, the Saviour lived up to her title.

Emma, in full on Dragon Rage Mode, came literally tearing out of the library and surged across the distance separating them. Her mouth was open in a roar, flames so hot they were blue and white smoke trailing from her gaping maw. She lunged, leaping over Regina, and slammed into Maleficent. There was a thunderous boom as she reared and braced both forelegs straight, clapping them into Maleficent’s chest.

Maleficent, the advantage of size and experience on her side, twisted away from most of the impact and tumbled to the side. Emma dropped onto her four and whirled over her tail to lunge at Maleficent again. She went for the wings, intending to ground the other dragon. There was a sickening crack when her jaws closed over one of the joints and she shook her head like a terrier with a rat. Maleficent shrieked in pain, her damaged wing trailing from her side, dislocated if not broken outright.

The purple dragon rounded on Emma’s smaller form but, where Maleficent had size and strength, Emma had speed and agility. Emma hopped clean over Maleficent’s head, avoiding the snap of teeth at her underbelly, and landed on Maleficent’s neck, bowling her to the ground.

They clashed horribly. Teeth flashing, gouts of smoke and flame billowing through the air, screaming like banshees. Talons scored over the road, tearing it like tissue paper, blood wheeled in crimson steaming splatters from scratches and bites and they broke apart.

Emma and Maleficent circled one another, tails lashing, hissing and spitting. The venom that mixed to combust into their flames dripped from their jaws and pattered to the street, rivers of fire flaring up. The dragons, fully fire retardant, stalked through it unheeding, but it forced Regina to get creative.

Emma was worse off than Maleficent. Cuts and tears rent her scales, though she had plastered her wings to her back to keep Maleficent from repaying what she’d done to her. She wasn’t used to fighting as a dragon though and –if she continued to rely so heavily on instinct- she’d sink into it completely and forget how to go back to being human.

Regina had to help Emma, but she didn’t have her magic anymore. She had all but exhausted it with the spells she had lain to trap her own mother. It would take her days to rebuild to her full strength, but she wasn’t done yet.

“Hey!” Regina hefted her helmet up off the street and let fly.

Maleficent grunted when the golden helm clanged off the ridge of scales on her cheek and she swung around to see Regina, eyes narrowed and smoke billowing from her nostrils. Anger took over and she lunged, forgetting Emma completely.

Regina braced herself for what was to come and her mouth dropped open when she saw what Emma did next to save her.

 Regina was long lived, a lifetime of experience as a paranoid lunatic under her belt having prepared her for almost anything. She had conjured most eventualities into her mind in order to prepare contingencies for them but she had _never_ thought she would see one dragon elbow-drop another.

Emma pounced like a fox on a mouse through snow, twisted in the air, gripped one talon in the other and smashed down onto Maleficent’s shoulders with all of her bodyweight focussed on the point of her elbow.

Regina coughed a laugh before she could stop herself. Sheer incredulity rooting her to the spot.

Maleficent smashed chin first into the street, blood bursting from her mouth when she clipped her tongue between her teeth. Emma tumbled over her and whipped back onto her feet just as quickly. Maleficent snarled, getting her legs under her and lunged for Emma.

She was completely unprepared for a boxing dragon that was more than familiar with the concept of self-defence.

Emma reared up on her hind legs, her tail swinging out to balance herself, and she punched Maleficent in the head with a roundhouse. Maleficent staggered and Emma crow hopped forward, clasping her talons together and smashing them both down on Maleficent’s nose in a stunning two handed blow. Maleficent tottered drunkenly and Emma gripped the spines on her head and led her into a headlock.

Maleficent went and lost her damn mind.

With a screech of rage and humiliation, Maleficent bucked and twisted. She flailed around like a snake on a hotplate, claws tearing into Emma’s back and sides, her good wing beating at her, the spines on her tail raking over her scales.

“Emma, let go! Dragons can hold their breath for hours. You can’t get her this way.”

One of Emma’s ears twitched to let Regina know she’d heard her and she heaved, sending Maleficent flying.

She underestimated her weight though and Maleficent wasn’t sent nearly far enough for Emma to make a clean getaway.

Maleficent rounded on her heels and lunged at Emma’s throat, jaws gaping wide. Emma’s eyes widened and she knew she couldn’t get out of the way. She tucked her chin, ducking her head so Maleficent couldn’t take her throat and screamed in pain when Maleficent’s teeth closed around her face instead.

Maleficent crunched her jaws down with every pound of closing pressure she had and Emma struggled madly.

“Emma!” Regina screamed in panic and frustration. Damn it! Why had the stupid girl had to interfere?!

Regina looked wildly around, searching for something, anything, as a weapon and she grinned darkly when she lit on a possibility.

Emma shrieked and bucked, clawing at Maleficent’s head. She could feel the other dragon’s teeth digging through scales and flesh, grinding against the very bones of her skull. It was a good thing that dragons were tougher than they even looked or Emma’s skull would have been crushed like an egg under the older dragon’s jaws.

Regina owed her HUGE for this.

Emma reared and twisted, trying desperately to get away, blood poured from her face and she realised, sickeningly, Maleficent’s tongue lapped it up and she gulped it down hungrily.

Emma went wild, she would not be _eaten_. She tore and savaged the other dragon, raking furrows into the softer skin of Maleficent’s chest and belly, scales flying like leaves in fall, blood pattering to the ground both hers and Maleficent’s.

Then it was gone.

Emma reeled when Maleficent was suddenly gone from her crushing hold on her face. She staggered, crashing to the street. She tried to get up, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate and she realised that the new roar added to the fight, was an engine.

Maleficent squealed in shock and pain when the produce truck that had been parked outside Granny’s crashed into her with extreme prejudice.

Regina grimly, shifted into a higher gear and jammed her foot down on the accelerator. She had no idea what horsepower the damn truck had but it was obviously enough to bowl over a sixty foot dragon.

Maleficent was sent scrambling, backing hurriedly away from this new foe, her eyes wide in surprise. What the hell was it? She backed away but it kept at her, butting her harder and harder, sending her scurrying.

It wasn’t until she spotted Regina inside that she realised it wasn’t alive. It was being controlled. Maleficent’s face contorted in fury and she reared, slamming both forelegs down onto the hood of the truck and snapping the axle like a twig. Her nose smashed into the glass of the windshield and she bit at Regina.

Regina yelped, threw open the door and flung herself free of the truck. She had no desire to be gulped down like a tinned sardine. She dashed across the street and spun, making sure Maleficent was following her.

“Come on then!” Regina screamed at her.

Maleficent screamed back and it blasted Regina’s hair back from her face.

Regina winced at the force of the heated air and hoped Maleficent wouldn’t give in to the temptation to roast her.

A roaring snarl echoed throughout the street and a dark brown shape flew through the air.

“Oh my GOD!” Regina threw her hands up. “Will you people stop saving me?!”

Ruby was a little too busy to answer, hanging from Maleficent’s throat as she was. She had her teeth burrowed into Maleficent’s neck, barely managing to dent the scales there, but curled her body up and scrabbled madly with all four paws.

Daniel came out of nowhere, he just appeared at Maleficent’s side, hauled back, and smashed his fist into her foreleg. The joint cracked the wrong way and Maleficent crashed to the ground. Ruby was flung free by the impact and Daniel rounded off with a punch to the head that snapped Maleficent’s head to the side. Ruby pounced, latching onto Maleficent’s sensitive ear this time and hauled up off the ground again by her teeth when the dragon reared with a shriek.

“Come on, get out of here!”

 Regina yelped when Daniel bounded to her side, his hand closing on her arm, and yanked her away.

“No!” Regina struggled but he simply turned and scooped her up off the ground, armour and all, making a break for cover.

“Daniel, put me down!” Regina twisted and managed to break free, clattering to the street again. “You need to get out of here! Both of you!”

“We’re not leaving you, girl.” Granny materialised at her other side and brought her crossbow to bear. She loosed a bolt and Maleficent screamed and clawed at her face when it buried itself in her cheek.

“You have to! We can’t beat her, not like this, it takes an enchanted sword and we don’t have one!” Regina looked between them. “I have a plan, but you need to trust me.”

“Get Charming’s sword. Summon it.” Granny loosed another bolt, cursing when it skittered harmlessly off Maleficent’s scales.

“I don’t have the magic.” Regina shoved at them both. “Get out of here, I can do this.”

“Not alone you’re not.” Daniel glared at her. “I’m not leaving you.”

“You could be killed!” Regina shoved at his chest with both hands, her eyes burning. She stopped, forcing herself under control, chest heaving. “Let me do this. I can do it.”

“We’re not going anywhere.” Granny settled it with a cold, hard, glare. “Deal with it.”

Regina snarled a wordless sound of frustration.

A snarl that turned to a yelp when she realised the middle of a fire fight with a dragon was no place to be bickering with her family.

With a snap of her head on her neck, Maleficent sent Ruby flying with a yelp. Maleficent smashed both forelegs into the ground, talons punching deep into the tarmac for leverage and sucked in a deep breath.

“No.” Regina threw up her hands automatically but nothing happened. The magical shield sparked and sputtered but she was all tapped out.

Daniel grabbed her and Granny both when the fire and magic bloomed from Maleficent’s mouth with a cacophonous roar but he had to know he couldn’t get all three of them out of the way in time. He was going to have to pick one.

Henry made the decision for them.

Regina screamed in fear and frustration when her son skidded to a halt in the road in front of them. His silhouette turned black to her eyes when the fire washed towards him in an unstoppable wave, but she really should have known better than to worry. Henry wasn’t the type to walk into a trap he couldn’t get out of either.

With a defiant yell, Henry stomped one foot down and cracked the road beneath him in a burst of violence and shocking magic. He cast both arms up over his head and the road peeled back and up, crashing together in a great wedge of heat resistant rock.

Maleficent’s fire splashed against it, splattered apart by the shield Henry had conjured and burned harmlessly into the air.

The effort cost Henry dearly. He screamed the entire time, his hands clasped together over his head, white knuckled. Convulsing with the strength needed for the spell he had just worked but he did not let it go.

To him it seemed to last forever but in reality it was a handful of seconds before the dragon was forced to suck in a breath and there was a break in the torrent of magical green fire.

“Enough of this!” Regina snapped and took off running.

Henry collapsed to his knees, breathing hard and barely registered his mother vaulting clean over his head and up onto the lip of the road he’d peeled back like the skin of an orange.  

Regina had thought she’d used all her magic but magic is based on emotions and right then -with her son exhausted and trembling, her entire family in danger- she was feeling _particularly_ emotional.

Regina leapt from the vantage point of the shield Henry had pulled up and fire burst from the soles of her boots, literally rocketing her up into the air.

 _Towards_ Maleficent.

 “Smile, bitch!” Regina screamed and Maleficent whirled around, seeing Regina drop on her from above.

With a gape of her jaws and a snapping gulp, Maleficent swallowed Regina whole.

“NO!” Daniel roared and rushed forward, sent flying by Maleficent’s whipping tail.

Ruby howled when Maleficent lashed out with her still functioning wing and batted the werewolf harmlessly away. She lunged forward, racing towards Granny, smoke and flames building in her throat.

Granny sniffed in disdain, unimpressed. She stood between Henry and the dragon, levelled her crossbow and waited for her shot.

Hyde roared.

No, it was Daniel, no, Hyde. Both of them, both of them sharing the same space, were suddenly there. It was Hyde wearing Daniel’s body or maybe the other way around. Not as big as Hyde’s true form, not as small as Daniel’s. Grey skin rather than black, clothed rather than having ripped through them with the transformation, and mad as all hell.

Daniel Hyde ducked under Maleficent skidded to a crouching halt and then leapt upwards. The point of his fist, powered by the combined strength of Hyde and Daniel’s fury, slammed into Maleficent’s stomach. It was a vicious gut punch that lifted all four feet off the ground and folded her in half. 

Maleficent squawked and croaked at the same time and retched horribly.

Regina, in a torrent of bile and other less savoury fluids, was expelled forcibly from Maleficent’s maw and was sent skittering over the street. She slid to a grinding halt on her back and lay still.

It seemed that Daniel’s punch had broken something important inside of Maleficent because she shrieked, green light spilling from her eyes and sparking from her mouth. She toppled backwards, thrashing on the ground, wailing and clawing at her own head. She twitched and convulsed before finally falling still.

Daniel, Hyde having receded until he looked like himself again, ignored it all and ran to Regina.

Henry, his magic feeding from his emotions just as strongly as Regina’s, was suddenly energised enough to sprint after Daniel. He fell into step with him and they both crashed to their knees at Regina’s side.

“Mom!”

Regina’s armour clattered when Henry gripped it and leaned over her, searching her face for signs of life. Her eyes were closed and she looked pale.

“Mom, wake up!”

“Come on, Regina, don’t you dare leave me.” Daniel dropped to his knees and studied the armour. It was dented in the middle, crumpled where Maleficent’s teeth had crunched it on the way down her gullet.

Daniel seized the breastplate in both hands and wrenched.

The armour peeled apart under his strength and determination and Regina bolted upright, eyes flying wide and sucking in a ragged breath. She was caught by Henry and Daniel both and dissolved into a wracking coughing fit.

“That,” she wheezed, “was disgusting.”

“Mom!” Henry threw his arms about her neck, ignoring the stench and gunk that covered her.

Regina, still panting, settled one arm around Henry and squeezed Daniel’s hand in her gauntleted fist. She smiled weakly at him.

“That was stupid.” He gulped, terrified and relieved and enraged and terrified all over again.

“I know but it was the only way.” Regina let Henry settle down beside her and looked down at him, smiling. “I guess I didn’t count on people coming to my rescue.”

“Did you think we were just going to leave you to fight it alone?” Granny loomed over her, dealing with her affection and worry for Regina in the familiar form of scowling at her.

“I had rather been counting on it.” Regina winced and squirmed uncomfortably. “I think I landed on my keys.”

Daniel laughed incredulously.

“You stink.” Ruby appeared and engulfed Regina in a choking hug.

“Congratulations, now you do too.” Regina put up with the embrace and resisted the urge to lie down.

For a week or two.

A deep groan issued from behind them and her friends reacted in an instant.

Daniel surged to his feet, his eyes flashing a lurid green, Granny whipped her crossbow up and Ruby shifted to her wolf form, a snarl rumbling from her chest.

“Friendly!” Regina toppled over, grabbing Daniel’s ankle to stop him attacking the gold dragon. “She’s friendly.”

Daniel, Ruby and Granny all relaxed a little but didn’t back down.

“Help me up.” Regina used Henry as a crutch to get to her feet and started towards Emma. She limped as quickly as she was able and approached cautiously, keeping Henry behind her, just in case. “Emma?”

“ **You suck.** ” Emma groaned with her thundering voice. She rolled onto her front and rested her chin on her talons, her wings drooping loosely from her back. Blood spattered her everywhere, but her wounds had already stopped bleeding and were knitting together. “ **Regina, you suck balls.** ”

 _“Emma?!”_ Henry swung out from behind Regina and stared at the golden dragon lying in front of him. “You’re a dragon.” He squeaked.

“ **Hey, kid,** ” Emma smiled weakly, “ **I wanna give you a hug but…I really just want to lie here for, like, the next fortnight.** ”

“I concur.” Regina wobbled over to sit down beside Emma and collapsed against her scaled side. She was incredibly warm and it went a long way to soothing Regina’s aching muscles.

“ **Did we win?** ”

“Yes…I think.” Regina removed her gauntlets and smeared at the gunk coating her face. Her hair was plastered to her head and she could feel it soaking through the armour and her clothes beneath. “I’ll wash but I’ll never be clean.” She grumbled.

“You’re a dragon.” Ruby approached Emma and cautiously poked her in the snout. Emma grunted and shot her a warning glare but didn’t bite.

“I take it you’re not usually a dragon?” Daniel sidled around this Emma character and glanced down at Regina. She was flopped against the golden dragon’s side, her head tilted back and her eyes closed.

“ **I play a human on TV.** ” Emma agreed blandly and lifted her head, smiling when Henry stepped forward and ran his hands over her face. Her head was longer than he was tall. She tilted her nose down and he wrapped his arms around her snout, hugging the only part he could.

“I’m glad you’re back.” He murmured into her scales.

“ **Me too. I missed you, kiddo.** ” She closed her eyes and just let him hold her for long moments.

“How did you do it?” Henry pulled away a little, looking at his own reflection in the giant sapphire of her eye. “How did you use magic?”

“ **My magic, your mom’s spells. She did it for me.** ”

“Really?!” Henry sat down on Emma’s foreleg so he could be close to both mothers. “I didn’t know you could turn into a dragon, mom.”

“I can’t, rather, I have never bothered to try.” Regina didn’t open her eyes and continued to rest against the soothing heat beating from Emma’s flank. “Miss Swan is quite powerful so I decided to test the spell and see if it worked.”

 **“Test?!”** Emma swung her head around to look down at Regina. **“You mean you didn’t know it would work?”**

“The mass differential is always difficult.” Regina opened one eye and looked up at Emma. “I am not completely insane, at worst, you would have ended up a very small and skinny dragon.”

**“Gina?”**

“Stop!” Regina lunged to grab Daniel’s pant leg when he turned to gut punch himself a dragon again. “Help me up.” She didn’t waste time waiting for help and climbed him to her full height instead.

“I thought you’d killed her.” Granny, who had been keeping watch on Maleficent’s still form, hadn’t lowered her crossbow and had a bead on the dragon’s eye.

“No, I helped her.” Regina limped towards her friend and smiled tiredly.

 **“Gina, what did you give me?”** Maleficent groaned and lifted her good paw to her head.

“Your soul.” Regina had to duck around Daniel, who had taken it upon himself to be her shield. “It’s going to be hazy while it reintegrates, but the rest should come back to you soon enough.”

 **“I loathe you.”** Maleficent made to stand and gasped in pain when her foreleg buckled under her. She crashed back to the ground and whimpered. **“You couldn’t have saved me a little more gently?”**

“You were rather intent on eating the town, dear.” Regina shouldered Daniel reluctantly forward so she could examine her friend, checking or the most serious injuries. “Any breakages?”

 **“My leg.”** Maleficent eyed her foreleg which seemed to have more corners than usual.

“Your wing?” Regina grunted when Daniel point blank refused to move within claw’s reach.

“ **Dislocated.”**

“Small favours I suppose.” Regina leaned heavily against Daniel.

**“Does anybody want to explain what’s going on?”**

Regina turned to find Emma had approached, she was scowling, her wings half raised in preparation to launch herself at Maleficent if she had to.

 **“Be calm, hatchling, I’m no threat to you.”** Maleficent groaned and gripped the wrist of her foreleg in her teeth. She made a brief and agonised sound when she yanked sharply and reset the bone with a sickening crunch. She panted and sagged with the effort it had cost her.

“Maleficent was warped by the curse. It lobotomised her, turned her into a mindless beast. Due to recent adventures, I was able to rescue the missing part of her from her sleeping curse. Reuniting one with the other had the desired effect of restoring her to her former self. To the saner self she was before she ever cast the curse. Which is why she’s not eating us right now.” Regina waved between the two dragons.

 **“You said you did this to her.”** Emma accused.

“I did, I cast the curse.”

**“You made it sound deliberate.”**

“Trapping her was.” Regina wanted very badly to sit down again. “Tearing her mind in two wasn’t. She didn’t deserve that.”

“ **Why didn’t you tell me that the first time?”** Emma growled and lowered herself to the street again. Henry sat astride her back and she was careful not to tip him off.

Henry was just glad to be there. One mom had fought a dragon and the other was one. This was awesome! He was jittery and he felt like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Magic took a lot out of him, but he felt puffed up and clever from having saved his mom, Granny and Daniel. All in all, he was pretty giddy and just trying not to topple over, but knights didn’t fall flat on their faces and he wasn’t about to start now.

“Because I needed you to slice her head off.” Regina gave up and just lowered herself to the street there and then. The armour covering her legs still clattered uncomfortable but she didn’t have the energy to remove it. “You wouldn’t have done it if you felt sorry for her.”

 **“Nice.”** Emma disapproved and Maleficent snorted.

**“Regina, you’re a heartless bitch.”**

Regina, who had lowered herself completely onto her back, lifted a hand to wave at Maleficent.

“I learned from the best, dear.”

Maleficent snorted a chuckle and Regina smirked. Theirs was by no means a normal friendship but it was surprisingly stable. They had known each other for years and had been friends for just as long. Despite their bitching and endless opportunities to do so, neither had been quite willing to destroy the other.

“ **Don’t go to sleep.”** Emma prodded Regina with a claw. **“I need you to turn me back.** ”

“Can’t.” Regina lifted a hand and blindly swatted Emma’s claw away.

“ ** _WHAT?!”_**

Everyone winced at the cacophonous blast of sound that echoed from Emma’s chest and Regina grumbled herself upright to glare at the gold dragon. She explained sullenly as if to a child.

“I’m not strong enough to force you back into your natural shape, you’re not strong enough to loan me the power either. You’re going to have to wait to recover yourself and then I’ll show you how.” She lay back down again, smiling when Daniel lowered himself to the street beside her and rested her head on his lap.

 **“Not to mention that –should you turn back now- the blood loss and wounds you have sustained will more likely reduce your human form to giblets and kill you outright.”** Maleficent chimed in. **“Believe me, healing as a dragon is a lot faster and easier than as a human.”**

As if to illustrate, Maleficent lifted her mangled wing and deliberately snapped it out to its full extension. The sound of the joint being forced back into place was like a cracking tree trunk. She hissed out a low and sibilant sound of pain.

“What she said.” Regina seconded.

**“So, I’m stuck like this?”**

**“Temporarily.”**  Maleficent flexed her wing carefully.

“That is so cool.” Henry brightened, bouncing on Emma’s back. “Will you take me flying?”

 **“No.”** Emma hadn’t been terribly worried about dropping Regina, aside from the fact she hadn’t been given much choice in the matter, but there was no way she was risking Henry like that.

Regina groaned quietly.

The last thing she needed was for her son to use his nebulous magic in an attempt to turn into something with wings. There was a reason shapeshifting was reserved for advanced practitioners, there were all kinds of simply awful things that could happen to a body without the proper precautions.

“Mom, when you’re better, will _you_ take me flying?” Henry tried again.

“Perhaps.” Regina sighed. “I’m going to sleep for about twenty years first though.”

 **“I hear that.”**  Emma lowered her chin onto her paws again and eyed Maleficent. **“You’re really not going to eat the town? Because I’m too tired to fight you again, I’ll just sit on you if you try something.”**

 **“I never eat humans if I can help it.”** Maleficent wrinkled her snout. **“Too many little bones.”**

“And you never know where they’ve been.” Regina smirked. She opened her eyes suddenly. “I’m _starved._ ”

“ **Diner?”** Emma lifted her head hopefully.

“I don’t think you’ll fit, Emma.” Henry chuckled. “Or that Granny has big enough burgers.”

“ **Oh, man, I could totally go a breakfast burger.”** Emma’s forked tongue slithered over her lips in an unconscious gesture that caused a little alarm for all the bitesize people surrounding her. **“With nuclear nachos and curly fries and a coke float. Apple pie and custard for dessert. God, I’m drooling.”**

Regina laughed.

“Not to mention her nibs here won’t be getting in until she showers.” Granny nudged Regina with her toe and Regina grunted, swatting at her foot. “Twice.”

“Someone carry me to the fountain.” Regina sighed. “Just drop me in and pour in some detergent. I don’t even care if I rust.”

“You do stink.” Daniel smiled down at her and she cracked open an eye to smile in return.

“You say the nicest things, dear.”

 **“Is this your true love then?”** Maleficent stretched her neck forward turning her head to eye Daniel more closely. **“The man to wake you from the sleeping curse.”**

 **“Huh?”** Emma nearly gave herself whiplash to study the stranger.

“The one and only.” Regina settled more comfortably into Daniel’s lap and waved between them all. “Mal, Daniel –resident true love, Granny –technically adopted mother, Ruby –werewolf extraordinaire, Henry –my son and Emma Swan –Saviour, pain in my ass and Henry’s mother. Everybody; Maleficent, dragon sorceress of the Western Wood, Queen of Thorns and my best friend.”

Maleficent ducked her head in a formal greeting. She turned back to Daniel.

**“I thought Daniel died. Was that not the whole reasoning behind your descent into madness?”**

“I do not suffer from insanity, I enjoy it immensely.” Regina made a peevish sound when Granny kicked her again. “Yes. Daniel was dead. Now he isn’t. It is a very long and convoluted story and I’m having at least three dinners, two baths and a bottle of wine before I get into it.”

 **“I get the feeling I missed a lot while I was away.** ” Emma grumbled.

“Oh, yeah,” Henry spoke as if he had just remembered. “Let’s see…mom’s not evil anymore, Daniel –mom’s true love- is back from the dead and he brought Mister Hyde with him, Granny adopted mom as her daughter so she’s Ruby’s sister-by-another-mister, Granny declared war on the faeries after the Blue Faerie attacked mom but there’s a ceasefire because Mister Hyde threw the Blue Faerie across town and threatened to eat them all aaanndd…mom kind of adopted Rachel –Rapunzel- so I kind of have a big sister now.” Henry ticked them off and rapidly ran out of fingers. “I think that’s about it.”

Emma blinked a few times and hummed deep in her throat.

 **“Right.** ” She shook her head sharply as if to clear it. **“How long have I been away?”**

“About a month.”

“ **Gina, you have been busy.”** Maleficent chuckled. **“I can’t wait to hear more of this. Is there a manual, a pamphlet, I could read?”**

“ **That’s not a terrible idea at all.”** Emma agreed.

“Maybe I should add this stuff to The Storybook. It might be cool to have complete stories in there rather than just the bad bits.” Henry beamed at his new project. He’d recently run out of operations. There wasn’t much evil in Storybrooke now that his mom was good and Emma and Snow were back.

“I kind of like being the villain.” Regina yawned. “It means I get the best musical numbers.”

Henry giggled and Regina smiled.

She sat bolt upright at the screech of tyres and everybody tensed.

David, Snow, Rumple and Belle all poured out of David’s truck.

“Oh…the library…” Belle groaned when she saw the new open outlook of her project.

“I’ll fix it.” Rumple hurried to assure her and winced, he ached all over. “Tomorrow.”

“Is everybody okay?” David halted uncertainly when Maleficent the dragon just looked down at him with the same interest she might reserve for a particularly bright sea sponge.

“No, Charming, we were just deciding in which order we would like to be eaten.” Regina drawled and grimaced when she smelled herself. God, if _she_ could smell it she had to REEK.

“It’s gonna be biggest to smallest.” Henry chimed in. “Daniel was just deciding if he wanted to be basted in butter or gravy.”

“I think I’m going to be buttered and lightly salted.” Daniel pretended to come to a slow decision.

“Daniel?” Snow stopped and gaped. “But…but…”

 **“Don’t ask.”** Emma told her mother and quieted herself when Snow flinched at the sound of her voice.

“Oh my…Regina, you turn her back right this instant!” Snow rounded on Regina who arched a brow at her.

“You are about five minutes too late for that conversation.” Regina yawned. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Snow advanced an angry step and stopped cold when David’s hand landed on her arm.

“Snow, it’s alright.”

“Our daughter is a dragon!”

“And what a marked improvement it has been.” Regina couldn’t resist a little pestering. She’d missed making Snow miserable.

 **“Hey!”** Emma glared down at her. “ **I’m still hungry, you know, and you’re conveniently bite sized.”**

“You’d choke.” Regina dismissed it and clambered to her feet. She shambled towards the green. Snow appeared in front of her but she kept walking, forcing Snow to back away in front of her.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing but Emma could have been killed!”

“Which is different from her last few weeks in the Enchanted Forest how?” Regina gave a half watt glare. She was too tired for this.

“Another thing that was your fault!”

“Having my soul sucked out by a wraith was not my idea.” Regina pointed behind her. “You can talk to Rumple about that one.”

“Turn her back!”

“Can’t.” Regina reiterated. Really, it was a single syllable word, how difficult could it be to understand?

“I don’t believe you!”

“Your disbelief does not alter the fact that I’m telling the truth.”

“You never tell the truth.”

“You should look behind you.”

“What?”

“Seriously, you’re about to,” Regina smirked when Snow’s foot caught on the lip of the fountain and she yelped as she tumbled over the low railing to splash spectacularly into the pattering water, “fall over.”

Snow sat up in the fountain, coughing and spluttering and glaring deathly glares at Regina as she stepped over the edge of the fountain and splashed under the cascading spray. Water sluiced over her, washing away the dragon bile and blood and most of the stink with it. She smirked at Snow’s furious face.

“See? I can tell the truth.”

 

**_The Green, Later…_ **

 

“That’s so disgusting.” Henry watched Emma tear into a cow carcass she had just roasted with her fiery breath.

Maleficent had shown her how and she was on her third of such dinners and still felt hungry. The cow was _mostly_ cooked. In the way that a blue steak is mostly cooked, so there was still a liberal splattering of red all over the lawn of the park that Henry had been playing in just that afternoon, but he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away.

“ ** _You_ try being a forty foot tank with wings and see how dainty your table manners are.”** Emma grumbled but didn’t stop tearing great ribbons of flesh from the skinned cow that had been so generously ‘donated’ from the abattoir.

Regina had mentioned something about being able to pay for it all but Emma had already had both paws and mouth filled with dead animal by that point and hadn’t cared for the particulars.

She was moving onto the pork after this.

“It’s kinda cool too though.” Henry smirked and reassured her.

He too was chowing down like it was going out of fashion. He had eaten no less than three hotdogs and buns, four hamburgers with extra jalapenos, a pint of hot chocolate, two pints of soda and he was now toasting marshmallows over the portable barbecue that Granny had sourced from somewhere. He had cookies for enough s’mores to feed an army.

How did his mom _do_ this without needing to eat ALL the time?

“Dinner!”

Speak of the devil and she shall appear.

“Gimme.” Regina bravely or stupidly approached Maleficent with her own roasted cow and held out a paper plate that she had stolen from Henry’s picnic set.

Maleficent growled and Regina arched a brow.

“ **You are lucky that you are too scrawny to be a decent meal.”** Maleficent told her and used one razor talon to slice off a hunk of meat and drop it onto Regina’s plate.

“Thank you.” Regina smiled sweetly and then meandered over to sit down beside Henry, already tearing into her bloodied rump steak through dint of picking it up with her hand and biting off great chunks directly.

Henry outright stared. He’d never seen his mom revert to full on Neanderthal. There was even juices dripping down her chin but she didn’t seem to care as she plopped down beside him.

“Oh my god, it’s so GOOD!” Regina even spoke with her mouth full and Henry narrowed his eyes.

“Who are you and what have you done with my mom?”

“I’m a pod person, I killed her and ate her liver with a nice chianti.” Regina worked her arm free of the handles of the bag she had been carrying and nudged it towards him. “Pyjamas.”

“I see.” Henry smiled when he saw Regina was way ahead of him.

She wore her favoured blue silk pyjama set, her biggest, fluffiest bathrobe belted loosely over them and a pair of sheepskin slipper boots that reached mid-calf. Her hair was damp from the shower still and hung loose to her shoulders.

“You look nice.” Henry smiled. Relaxed too and that was more important to him. He had thought she would get all tense and angry when confronted with Snow and Emma again but she seemed –with Emma at least- to be exercising her tolerance muscles.  

“Thank you, honey. Though I am hardly dressed to impress.” Regina smiled at him and sucked at her fingers, cleaning the steak juices from them with neat licks of her tongue. She turned her eyes to the rest of the mountain of food that Granny had brought for Henry. “What else is there?”

“Hotdogs, burgers, peppers, cheese, buns, cookies, marshmallows, soda, coffee –she musta known you were coming- chips, dips, corn, coleslaw, gravy and lasagne sandwiches.”

“Ooh.” Regina pounced on the last, rummaging for that elusive Tupperware box, and falling on it like a heathen when she found it. She pulled out a doorstep thick sandwich for each hand and took huge bites out of each alternately. “Mmm!”

Regina nodded to Henry’s glass of soda with a straw lolling from it and he giggled at her, lifting the huge glass so she could lean forward and sip from it.

“How are you not hungry like this all the time?” Henry took the drink away when she was done. “I just used magic once and I’m _starving_.”

“I’m older.” Regina gulped down the crusts of her sandwiches and licked a blob of sauce from the corner of her mouth. “Which means I’ve gotten smarter at hoarding my power and I have a LOT more stamina. Magic is like using muscles, the more you practice, the better you get and the longer you can go for. You’ll get there.”

“You’re hungry now ‘cause you used too much?”

“Not too much, just more than I usually do. It’s been a long time since I was so taxed in combat. Once you reach a certain strength, there are very few people that can take you one-on-one in a knock-down-drag out fight. Those that are usually have smarter ways of killing you than taking you on face to face.”

“ **Wait, Henry used magic?”** Their conversation finally filtered past the consuming hunger that roiled in Emma’s head and she lifted her eyes to study them. **“When did this happen?”**

“Yesterday was the first time he used magic in the physical realm.” Regina said easily though she shot a look at Henry. “Despite promises not to, but today he saved all of our lives.”

“ **He did?”**

“Yeah, I’m super awesome cool now.” Henry laughed and sidled closer to Regina when she held out her arm with the full expectation that he would situate himself under it.

So he did.

Emma cocked her head and studied the interplay between mother and son but didn’t comment.

 **“That was delicious.”** Mal, indifferent to or ignorant of their conversation rose to her feet and stretched like it was a new religion.

She walked her forelegs out in front of her and bowed down, lifting her tail up high and spreading her wings to their full range of forward motion. Then she rocked forward, tilting her head back on her long neck, swishing her tail over the grass, rear legs trailing behind her and her wings sweeping backwards too. A symphony of crackles and pops announced her joints and muscles realigning.

She prowled forward when she was done and began to circle around the picnic blanket that Regina and Henry sat on. She did a couple of circuits and then settled down onto the new patch of grass that was clean of blood and the neat pile of bones that remained of her dinner. She was a wall of solid muscle and belting heat surrounding the two humans. Her snout resting flat on the ground by Regina and her tail coiling round so that the flared spines trailing from the arrowhead at the tip were close enough for Henry to reach out and touch.

Emma wisely decided not to make the comparison between the settling dragon and a dog bedding down for the night.

“ **Where are the others?”** Maleficent interjected before Emma could ask more boring questions about a boy with magic.

“On Main Street, discussing who’s going to get the contracting job for repairs.” Regina had moved onto a bag of chips, salsa and sour cream. Granny’s own recipe, she might have to trade lasagne secrets for this.

“ **You’re not going to fix it?”** Emma was oddly surprised. She didn’t know why though, she had never thought Regina the type to clean up her messes other than to hide the evidence of her latest nefarious doings but…she seemed different.

“ _I_ didn’t break it.” Regina said archly.

Henry opened his mouth and then clapped it shut. That was actually true. His mom had totalled a…well no, actually, Maleficent had totalled the truck. Regina had just been driving it.

“Besides, I’m a sorceress, not a bricklayer. Such things are beneath me.” Regina mocked lightly and caved under Henry’s arched look. “The real reason is decidedly more economical and quite boring. Suffice to say, if I do everything with magic, how are people going to earn a living? The upside of my more destructive tendencies is that the construction business will undergo a boom of productivity.”

Henry frowned, mulling that over.

“I may not be the Mayor anymore, but I still insist on making this town work.” Regina smoothed back his hair when he yawned cavernously. “I think you had best ready for bed.”

“I don’t want to leave Emma.” Henry scowled a little.

“And I didn’t even want her here in the first place, but life is about making do.” Regina smirked and spoke without any real venom. “Come on, pyjamas on and say your goodnights.”

“Where am I supposed to get changed?” Henry threw up his hands. If he couldn’t put on his pyjamas then it wasn’t bedtime. It stood to reason.

“ **Under here.”** Maleficent lifted one gigantic wing and curled it around so it formed a shelter more than big enough for a boy to stand under and switch clothes.

Henry frowned. Foxed again.

“Alright.” He didn’t sound pleased about it, but got to his feet and gathered up the bag Regina had brought with him. He disappeared beneath Maleficent’s wing and the dragon folded it carefully closed around him.

“Thank you.” Regina smiled up at Maleficent and the dragon shrugged a monumental shoulder.

 **“He does not seem like a _complete_ waste of space.”** Maleficent allowed. **“For a human.”**

“High praise indeed.” Regina smirked and turned when Emma spoke.

“ **You’re really different.”**

“Yes, I am.” Regina shrugged a shoulder.

 **“It’s freaking me out.** ”

“Not to worry, I’m very tired. As soon as I replenish my energy, I shall go back to being an axe faced bitch to you.”

**“See? You even have a sense of humour!”**

“And all the best one-liners.” Regina smirked and sipped from Henry’s soda again. The sugary buzz from it was quite pleasant. She pondered what to eat next.

 **“This Daniel guy must be really something to have fixed you**.”

“I am not _tame_ , Miss Swan.” Regina spoke with enough bite to make her point. “I have mellowed somewhat but do not expect me to have flipped a one-eighty. All you need know is that things have changed and I…am trying.”

The tip of Emma’s tail twitched as she studied Regina with the gimlet hard eyes of a predator and put her superpower to work. Her scaly brows rose when she realised the woman was telling the truth. Emma tossed aside the last bone she had been nibbling on and rose to prowl closer to Regina and onto a clean stretch of lawn.

**“I believe you.”**

“And suddenly my life is complete.” Regina rolled her eyes skyward.

She turned suddenly to look out over the lawn and then Maleficent lifted her head too to look in the same direction. Emma heard the footsteps then as well and Daniel stepped out of the gloom of dusk into the soft light given off by the embers in the barbecue and two sets of glowing dragon eyes.

“Good evening.” Daniel took the raptor gazes of both giant reptiles in his stride and nodded to each of them in turn before looking down at Regina. “Ready to go?”

“Almost. Henry’s just changing.”

“Henry’s what?” Henry sidled out from under Maleficent’s wing when she raised it for him and he toted the bag of his clothes back to dump beside the picnic blanket.

“Ready for bed.” Regina creaked her way to her feet and stretched as expansively as Maleficent had to work out all the kinks.

“Do I _have_ to?” Henry came perilously close to a whine.

“Yes. It’s too cold for you to sleep out here.”

“I could sleep under Emma’s wing.”

 **“That could work.”** Emma didn’t really want to be parted from him either. She’d spent far too long without her son as far as she was concerned.

“Which will work out splendidly until she rolls over in the night and squashes you into jelly.” Regina told him archly.

**“I wouldn’t squish him!”**

“She wouldn’t!” Henry leapt to her defence and Regina held up her hands to fend both protests off.

“I know exactly how unpleasant it is to be parted from the ones you love.” Understatement of the millennium. “One more day, will not kill you. Henry, you just used a _lot_ of energy and your immune system is lowered, I don’t want you getting sick. Emma, there is a chance that you could read him as prey.”

She didn’t say any more than that but Emma’s head rocked back on her neck and her eyes widened at the very prospect.

“ **Kid, go home with your mom.”**

“You’re my mom too!” Henry looked like he wanted very badly to stomp his foot but managed to restrain himself. It was in that moment that Daniel struck.

He reached out and thumped Henry in the chest with one hand, bowling the boy over with minimal effort.

 **“Hey!”** Emma thundered to her feet with a roaring snarl which clashed horribly with Maleficent’s warning growl.

Emma subsided a little when she saw Henry tumble nimbly over his shoulder rather than sprawl winded on the grass and then launch himself with a yell at Daniel’s midsection.

Daniel stood patiently whilst the boy tried to knock him over –or even move him- and then bent, looping his arm around Henry’s waist and picking him up so his legs kicked in the air over his head and he giggled madly at being turned upside down.

“You’ll make him sick.” Regina spoke mildly and Emma slowly lowered herself back down into her resting sphinx position.

All three of them, Henry, Regina and Daniel, acted like this was perfectly normal. Emma felt the claws of something hot and jealous needle her insides at the same time as something cold and pained panged around her heart.

Regina bent at the waist and twisted her head around so she was tilted to face the same way as Henry.

“Are you going to say goodnight now?”

“Yeah, okay.” Henry managed around his chuckles and Daniel slowly set him down, giving him time to get used to being flipped around.

Henry still blinked and weaved a little when he stood up but shook it off to bound over to Emma and fling his arms about her muzzle when she dipped her nose down towards him.

“Goodnight.” He whispered to her and pressed a kiss to the scales between her eyes.

He released her suddenly as if embarrassed and then smiled at her. With one last wave he turned to bid goodnight to Maleficent as well –though with decidedly less affection- and attacked Daniel again, forcing the man to hoist him over his shoulder into a giggling fireman’s hold.

Daniel nodded to both dragons in farewell, shot Regina a meaningful look that meant she shouldn’t take forever to say her own goodbyes, and disappeared off into the gloom.

Taking Henry with him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Regina lifted her hand and Maleficent dipped her head, pressing her nose to Regina’s palm. “Sleep well.”

“ **Most likely for a week.”** Maleficent rumbled.

“Hardly. You’ve ever risen with the dawn.” Regina smirked and then turned away, she made as if to walk away and then stalled herself. She thought hard for a moment and then spun suddenly to advance on Emma.

Emma’s ears tilted down, not knowing what to expect and then her eyebrows shot up when Regina stood between her forepaws and lifted her hand expectantly.

Emma blinked at her for a long moment and then –sensing she was breaking some kind of etiquette by hesitating- lowered her head to let Regina’s hand rest against her nose.

Regina looked her right in the eye.

“If he didn’t love you so fiercely and I genuinely thought I could replace you, I’d never have brought you back.”

Emma blinked, stunned at that having come from Regina of all people and then watched as the sorceress spun away from her and disappeared off into the night.

Maleficent turned to watch her leave, her ears pricked towards her retreating friend and then she turned to favour Emma with a long look.

 **“What?** ” Emma said defensively.

This had been one long ass weird day in a history of weird ass days. She was done with curveballs and her world order being rewritten. She didn’t know how to deal with this strange animal that was a Regina that acted civilly towards her and had no real desire to explain herself with said strange animal’s best friend. Who happened to be an even stranger beast.

Maleficent smirked but said nothing.

She turned her attention to the picnic abandoned by Regina and Henry and licked up all the remaining food –tupperware containers, plastic, barbecue and all- with a single sweep of her person length green tongue. She gulped it all down with a couple of meaningful crunches and then curled herself into a giant scaly Danish.

Emma scowled at her for long moments and then yawned cavernously. It hit her then how tired she was and, tucking her tail under her nose and settling her wings around her in a mirror of Maleficent’s own pose. She tumbled readily into sleep.

There would be time enough to ponder out strange witches who seemed intent on knocking her off kilter and ruining her day.

Still, even with her enhanced draconian senses, Emma didn’t hear the thunderous splash off the Maine coastline.

It was a whirlpool of swirling light and crackling magic, much like the portal that had ushered Emma back into this world.

Exactly like, in fact.

A grand triple masted ship reared out of the portal with a graceful bound and cut through the fast current with ease. Her sails were full bellied with the prevailing wind and she moved with the ease of a dolphin from the slightest pressure against her helm from her captain.

“So this is the land without magic.” Said captain, Killian Jones, Captain Hook, looked out over the waters at the burning lights of the small town on the shore.

From this distance, it looked nothing special. Call him jaded, but three hundred years of wandering a hell of a lot more than seven seas meant he was under the impression that –if he hadn’t seen it all- he’d seen most things this universe had to offer.

“Not all of it is without magic.” His companion, the chilling witch Cora, stepped forward. So eager to get to the town that she couldn’t stay still. It wasn’t just the reflection of the town’s lights that made her eyes glitter. She all but vibrated at the prospect of the prize that awaited her ashore.

Hook wanted badly to sneer, allying with Cora left him with an ill taste in his mouth, but they were using one as much as the other.

“What’s the plan?” He turned his ship portside, cutting through the water parallel to the coast, eyeing for a friendly anchorage.

“Simple, I’m going to find my daughter. We’ll be together again.”

“And if she resists? Your last meeting didn’t go so favourably for you. Nasty business with a mirror if rumour is to be believed.” Hook almost regretted his tone when Cora rounded on him with a flint hard glare but, no, she needed him still.

She softened after a moment, drawing her pleasant mask in place, the manipulator through and through.

“She can’t resist me, I’m her mother.” Cora turned back to the shore and smiled, speaking mostly to herself. “She’s never been able to resist me, she loves me.”

Her smile took on an even darker slant.

“And love, of course, is weakness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun-dun-DUUUUUUUUUNNN!


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38 – Surely Not**

 

**_The Park_ **

 

Emma had to admit that being a dragon was pretty cool.

She awoke that morning feeling the best she had ever felt. She had stood and stretched, marvelling at the sensation. Her body –massive as it was- felt strong and powerful. Her scales gleamed and she admired them with a vanity previously alien to her and…she was _starving._

“ **Hungry?** ”

Emma turned her head to find the huge purple dragon, Maleficent, sprawled on the opposite her. She lay propped up on her elbows but with her rear legs stretched out behind her. The tip of her tail twitched idly and her ears ticked towards the tiny sounds all around them that Emma had been blissfully unaware of as a human.

Hell, she could hear a mouse scampering through the undergrowth when it caught scent of two such massive predators as they. She _knew_ that it was a mouse running. This was so weird.

 ** _“_** **Starving.** ” Emma was still surprised every time she spoke. Her voice, had it been any deeper, would have had to have come from below ground.

“ **Is there good hunting to be had hereabouts?”** Mal rose to her feet and arched her back like a cat, stretching and yawning to show off rows of sharp teeth.

 **“I don’t know. I’ve never gone hunting before. I usually just go to the store.”** Emma sat and curled her tail around herself neatly.

“ **I am not some pet to be fed. Any dragon worth their scales can hunt and –since you are one for however short a time- you shall act accordingly.”** Mal smirked, a terrifying expression and turned her long head this way and that, sniffing the air and measuring the wind against her scales. **“This town is surrounded by forest, if no one else hunts here, there must be game aplenty.”**

“ **I don’t think we should do that.”** Emma hedged.

 **“For why?”** Maleficent looked at her with genuine interest.

**“Well, I’m supposed to wait for Regina to come and turn me back.”**

**“She cannot do so without me to show you.”** Maleficent shrugged a huge shoulder. **“You can say that you were keeping watch over me, should you wish it.”**

When Emma shifted her weight and Maleficent sensed her indecision, she decided to take a different tact.  

 **“You cannot say that you did not enjoy flying.** ” Maleficent smirked at her again and –despite having spent the day previous trying to kill her- seemed like an alright kind of person…dragon…creature, Emma thought.

She unfurled her massive wings, sprawling shadows over the lawn, and stretched them to their full extent. She hummed in approval.

 **“It is good to be myself again. I have not been complete in decades.** ” Maleficent turned suddenly to Emma. She looked her up and down and hummed with a subsonic thrum in her throat. **“I suppose I owe you for helping Gina heal me. She would not have been able to get close enough without your aid. It took a great deal of trust on your part to allow her to change you thus. Becoming a dragon is no small feat. I am not surprised that Gina managed it, I _am_ surprised that you allowed it.** ”

“ **Well, ‘allowed’ is a pretty strong word for what happened. She kinda sprung it on me.** ”

Mal threw back her head and laughed with a sound somewhere between a human laugh and a pair of mating freight trains.

 **“That’s my Gina. She never did get the hang of saying please.** ”

“ **Oh yeah, she’s a peach**.” Emma drawled and found her own wings lifting and flexing. She could feel the morning breeze play over her scales, felt the heat of the sun warming the soft leather of her wings.

 **“Would you like to fly, little one?** ” Mal spoke suddenly and Emma looked at her with wide sapphire eyes.

She would hardly describe herself as little, being a spine over forty feet long now, but Mal _was_ over half that again so she supposed it was a matter of perspective.

 **“Regina will be here soon to turn me back.** ” Emma started hesitantly. Clinging to the excuse a little.

 **“But she is not here yet and it may be decades before you can learn to take this form again.** ” Mal rounded on her with a grin. **“She will be abed still, her human form will take longer to heal than ours. Let us fly, I shall show you what it means to be a dragon. To be a lord of the sky, to breathe magic and fire, to hear the turn of the world below you. Learn it now, goldling, for you may never have it again.”**

Emma stared at her a long moment and then she too grinned, showing off many white teeth. Her wings snapped open with a boom and she gave a little hop and a rear.

**“Let’s go!”**

Mal threw back her head and laughed again, glad to be complete once more. She lifted her great wings, crouching low to the ground. Emma mimicked her exactly. Trying to tap into that old reptilian part of her brain again that required more instinct than thought and –when Mal swept those massive wings of hers down and launched herself skyward- Emma was hot on her tail.

 

**_Granny’s_ **

 

The occupants of Main Street shrieked when two dragons billowed down onto the torn up road in front of the diner. The shining gold one landed a little clumsier than the ancient purple one but neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to eat anyone so most of the people involved in the clean-up effort found the first available cover and then peeked out to watch.

 **“You’re sure this is a good idea?** ” The gold dragon looked to the purple one and spoke with a voice that was vaguely familiar even if it did rattle windows in their frames.

 **“Of course. I made the mess, I shall clean it up.”** The purple dragon held her head high and waved a claw at the gold one dismissively. “ **It will also help you learn magic. All you must do, is breathe it, will it and it shall be done.** ”

 **“What about the cost?** ” The gold dragon looked sceptical. **“All magic has a price.** ”

The purple dragon snorted.

“ **For human sorcerers –perhaps- but not for dragons. We are borne of magic and therefore are part of it. How can it come with a price? Does your skin come with a price? Your eyes? Your tail? No. These things are part of you and under your control. Dragons are fully a part of the world around them. That destroyed…thing over there is as much a part of me as my scales. Scales that I control.”** The purple dragon made a show of raising the scales along her neck and shoulders and rattling them with a sound like a rainstorm. **“Watch.”**

The purple dragon turned on the destroyed…thing, commonly known as a totalled truck, and opened her massive jaws. She ignored the chorus of yelps and the furious ducking for cover that went on around her and huffed out a great gout of shimmering green light. It boiled up from within her throat and plumed out across the street, encompassing the car and –when it cleared away- the truck was once more whole and complete.

The dragon smirked and nodded to herself, green smoke trailing from her nostrils still. She turned to look at the gold dragon.

“ **Now you.”**

“ **Okay.”** The gold dragon looked less confident, but rallied herself and decided to try the cracks in the road beneath her talons. She closed her eyes, willing it to happen, and exhaled.

The fire, a white blue roar of it, vomited up out of her and poured onto the street. It shimmered into the road, spreading throughout out the buckling cracks of the street and knitted them back together.

The road was still a little lumpy, but it was whole at least.

“ **Very good.** ” The purple dragon approached and prowled around the smaller beast. **“You still breathed from your fire lung, the heat warped the stone of the road, but _very_ good for a first time.** ”

The gold dragon grinned, a terrifying expression, and puffed out her chest a little bit. Something that deflated when a sharp voice issued from the diner.

“Emma! What are you doing?”

Emma, the dragon, whirled on her tail in a move so fast it surprised even her and tried to look innocent in the face of Snow’s approach.

“ **I’m fixing the street.** " The golden dragon shrugged. “ **At least, that’s what I’m trying to do. Breathing magic is pretty hard.** ”

“You should be resting, waiting for Regina to eventually drag her butt down to the park and help you turn back.” Snow huffed out an annoyed sound and planted her hands on her hips.

 **“Hey, I’m not hurting anybody and –while I’m some kind of magical tank- I might as well do something useful with it.** ” Emma snorted smoke along with her words.

“What about the price?” Snow wrung her hands together. “This has got to come with a heck of a cost.”

 **“What does ‘heck’ mean?”** Mal slunk around Emma, her head lowering so she could look Snow in the eye. To her credit, the woman didn’t back up, but she did gulp.

“ **It’s a chicken way of saying ‘hell’.** ” Emma supplied then turned back to her mother. **“And it’s fine. Maleficent says there’s no price when you’re a dragon. I _am_ magic right now. It doesn’t cost me to use it.** ”

“Maleficent told you?” Snow threw her arms wide, nearly smacking said dragon on the nose. “Maleficent, Dragon of the West, best friend to the Evil-freaking-Queen, told you it was okay to do magic and you BELIEVED her?!”

 **“Yeah, well, when you put it like that, anything sounds dumb.** ” Emma threw herself down to sit on her haunches with a boom of her huge weight coming to rest. **“Listen, Snow, I get that you’re worried but she wasn’t lying. You know I can tell.”**

“ **She is also right here.”** Maleficent grumbled from behind ivory teeth the length of Snow’s arm. Her head snapped up at the jingle of a small bell and she rose to her full height, her chin swooping over Snow’s head with a rush of air and arcing down the other side, expecting to see Gina because of the smell. **“Oh.”**

If it’s possible for a dragon to look poleaxed, Maleficent did then. She froze, her nose almost pressed against the tall brunette that had dashed from inside the diner when she had realised where her friend had gone. Mal hurriedly reared back, nearly falling over her own tail in her hurry, and sat on her haunches.

 **“Hello.”** She said dumbly and Ruby just stood and stared at her for the longest time.

“Hi.” She eventually joined the conversation, never looking away from Maleficent, studying her from nose to tail. She hadn’t had a proper look yesterday, intent on tearing her throat out as she had been, but –even for a dragon- Maleficent was _impressive_.

A dragon that shuffled her wings with the air of a cat that had just misjudged leaping from the floor to the windowsill and hurriedly licked its armpit to recover its dignity. She walked her forelegs forward so she could lie on the road in a sphinx position. She spanned the street fully from one side to the other having to curl her tail about herself as it was that length again. 

“ **Apologies. I thought you were someone else because of your scent.** ” Mal sniffed and tried to remain aloof though the street shook a little with each beat of her pounding heart. She couldn’t say why the werewolf had caught her so completely by surprise and she did not like it either.

“Yeah, Reggie and I smell a lot alike now.” Ruby jogged down the steps, still fully focussed on Maleficent. She didn’t stop walking until she stood between the dragon’s paws and Maleficent had to tuck her chin down so she could keep Ruby in sight. “Family thing.”

“Family?” Snow broke the spell and both werewolf and dragon turned to look at her.

“What?” Ruby looked like she was trying to shake of a half of tequila.

“What do you mean you’re family with… _Reggie?!”_

“Huh? Oh, Granny did it.” Ruby shrugged and then turned back to Maleficent, craning her neck back to meet the dragon’s glowing green eyes. She lifted one hand. “Can I…?”

Maleficent didn’t say anything but lowered her head so that Ruby could lay her palm on the tip of her nose between her nostrils that glowed faintly with the fire within. Maleficent inhaled deeply, absorbing every nuance of Ruby’s scent and then exhaled on a slow and hot rush, letting Ruby do the same. Magic rolled over Ruby, painting her in a green shimmer that she didn’t seem to mind.

Ruby studied Mal’s eyes and realised that they were purple in the middle. Star bursts of a lurid violet and royal purples splashing out from the slash of the black pupil and the sclera of the eye was an endless green. There was no colour like it in the natural world. As iridescent as emeralds, but far brighter and more alive than such cold rocks. Perhaps more like sunlight through tree leaves.

Ruby wasn’t sure, she got the feeling that she could stand there and think about it for quite some time though.

“What do you mean ‘Granny did it’?” Snow wouldn’t let it go.

“How many other ways can that be taken?” Ruby turned to look at Snow now with an irritated expression that looked a _lot_ like a different brunette. She softened after a moment when Maleficent didn’t pull away from her hand resting on her muzzle. “It’s a long story, Snow.”

“Well, I’ve got time.” Snow approached and took Ruby’s arm, intending to pull her away from the gigantic dragon. Seriously, was she the only one who remembered how dangerous all these villains were?! Since when would Regina tolerate being called _Reggie_ anyway?

Snow yelped and dropped Ruby’s arm when Maleficent lifted one massive paw and slammed it down onto the road behind Snow, blocking her escape and raking more furrows into the asphalt. A _thunderous_ snarl rumbled from within the dragon’s throat, every single one of her ivory fangs bared right at Snow.

 **“ENOUGH!** ” Emma lunged forward and snapped her teeth right in Maleficent’s face. **“Be careful. They’re tiny.** ”

Mal jerked back from the snap but only scowled in response, her snarl dying away into a much quieter rumble below the range of human hearing. It was more felt than heard and it took a long time to silence itself.

Emma used a wing to herd Snow away from the purple dragon but wisely decided not to try and deprive Maleficent of her new werewolf toy.

“Okay, cliffnotes version;” Ruby barely seemed to notice that she stretched out a hand and propped herself against Maleficent’s chest, “Whale brought Daniel back from the dead using one of the hearts in Regina’s collection. Something went screwy and it drove Daniel insane. Regina and David tracked him to the stables and Regina came down with a bad case of the nobles and used her magic to save him. Unfortunately for her, that meant that she had to swallow the death curse _and_ all of Daniel’s pain.”

 **“That IDIOT!”** Maleficent clipped out with clashing teeth. **“I leave her alone for five bedamned minutes and she’s eating death curses. Did Rumple teach her _nothing?!”_**

“I know, right?” Ruby looked up at her with a half shrug and then turned back to Snow. “So, Regina was dying and getting more than a little pissy about it, but she just brought back her true love only to figure that she’d brought him back to herself as a monster and then my senses went all Hi-Def so I could smell all the pain rolling off her and I decided to be nice to her, but then Whale turned up in the diner and Regina tried to kill him because she told him to get gone and he said no.”

Ruby looked skyward and ticked her finger back and forth ordering her thoughts.

“Yeah, so I had to knock Regina the hell out and carry her to the Sheriff’s station to keep her from getting lynched. Rachel fixed the beating Whale gave Regina –and my girl can take a damn BEATING- and David put her out on bail with me. I took her back to the guesthouse and let her stay the night, Henry brought Blue round the next morning to help heal Regina but Regina’s allergic to faerie magic –or she was-  so she said hells to the no. Granny heard her and Granny’s been wanting to bite the crap out of Blue for forever, so she signed up an alliance with Regina and kind of adopted her –making Regina and me sisters.”

Ruby considered a moment more, wondering if she’d left anything important out and then snapped her fingers, pointing at Snow.

“Oh, and during wolf’s time, Regina totes went to bat for me and managed to turn herself into a werewolf too. So she’s a sorceress and a werewolf…and I can turn any time I want as well.” She grinned. “Happy?”

Snow stared at Ruby for a long moment and Emma huffed out a slow and heated breath.

“ **I’m going to settle on ‘politely confused’.”**

“That was the short version?” Snow said weakly.

“Yeah, the longer version includes battles on Main Street, your father-in-law getting turned into a normal wolf that can teleport –okay so maybe ‘normal’ is a strong word- and Daniel turning into a giant shark faced people eater.”

“Is everyone turning into something else?!” Snow threw up her hands.

“Well, yeah, Regina’s even getting good.” Ruby shrugged a shoulder. “She still wears the Evil Queen a couple of times a week, just to keep us on our toes, but variety and spicy life and all that.”

“She’s _evil_.” Snow spoke as if to a child.

“Hey!” Ruby straightened away from leaning on Maleficent and bared her teeth a little at Snow. “That’s my sister you’re talking about and she’s _trying_. She even brought your ungrateful butt back from the Enchanted Forest. So the least you can do is be thankful when she eventually heals herself from all the wounds she took to _help you_ and not try and steal everyone from her. Again.”

Snow blinked in shock and then frowned.

“What kind of spell did she put on you? Since when are you on her side?”

“Since I got tee-shirts made.” Ruby hauled up her shirt to show the top she wore beneath. “See?”

Ruby wore a white tee-shirt with big black letters proclaiming the slogan: ‘ _Team Reggie’._ She looked up at Snow, grinning again.

“Ten bucks a pop and there’s ball caps on the way too.”

There was a moment of stunned silence and then Emma broke.

She threw back her head, giving a roaring laugh that gouted blue fire into the air. She laughed and laughed, collapsing back over her tail, clutching at her middle with her forepaws and rolled about on the street laughing until even her dragon lungs burned for air.

“Emma, stop it!”

If at all possible, Emma laughed harder.

“ **She’s…she’s…** ” It took Emma long moments to quiet herself long enough between guffaws to speak. **“She’s gonna HATE that!”**

“I know, right!” Ruby grinned and hauled her shirt back down to cover her allegiance tee-shirt. “Daniel, Henry, David, Rachel and Granny already have theirs. I’m working on getting Belle to wear one. She wasn’t sure up until a couple of days ago then Gold did something to piss her off so she’s ordered a tee, a cap and about ten bumper stickers. I almost feel sorry for Gold.”

 **“Oh, you gotta give me one.”** Emma managed to stop roaring with laughter and rolled onto her side to prop herself on an elbow. **“She’ll flip her lid.”**

 **“I shall take one also.** ” Maleficent had very little clue as to what was going on but she wanted to join the fun. **“As soon as I am small enough to wear one, that is.** ”

“You’re all crazy.” Snow rubbed at her face. She looked up at her daughter. “You don’t even like her!”

 **“Hey, she brought me back from Fairy Tale Land, saved me from a lifetime of Chimera Surprise for dinner and Henry’s stopped beating himself up over pushing her away so he could break the curse. That alone gains her more than a few brownie points. She was different yesterday…when she was talking to just me anyway.”** Emma looked sideways at Snow **. “I think you might have to work on getting her to warm up to you though.”**

“ _I_ have to work on…!” Snow just stared up at her. “Has everyone just FORGOTTEN what she did to us?!”

 **“Mind your tone, heart thief.** ” Maleficent’s voice shook the entire street. **“Do not think you can speak of her in my presence thus.”** Maleficent’s head lowered so Snow was eye to teeth with her.

 **“Gina may be willing to tolerate you but I am not so easily appeased. Your weakness cost her everything she held dear. Cora might have shook her until she rattled but _you_ were the one to strike the blow that shattered her. She trusted you and you failed her.** ”

“I was a child…”

 **“DO NOT THINK TO MAKE YOUR EXCUSES TO ME!”** Maleficentflashed suddenly to all fours and loomed over Snow before even Emma could move. Snow’s hair was blasted back by the force of the dragon’s roar but Maleficent made no move to harm her. **“Gina may have cast the Curse of Curses but your vapid ignorance was a far greater evil than she could ever hope to be. Her punishment came LONG before her crimes and YOURS is the signature on the death warrant of her happiness.”**

“Nothing can excuse the things…”

Maleficent _roared_ lifting a paw to crush Snow with a single swat and then suddenly wheeled away. She prowled away, snarling and rumbling to herself shaking her head repeatedly in order to try and beat back the bloodlust. It would not do to kill the werewolf’s little friend. No matter how viciously stupid she was.

Maleficent stalked back and forth across the street, trying to burn off the energy that her temper had roused. Fire snorted from her nostrils with every breath and it wasn’t until a short whoop and a smaller growl blared behind her that she spun, teeth bared.

She stilled when she saw a squat black and white thing. Spinning lanterns of red and blue atop it and –she thought- she could see someone inside it.

The thing nudged forward and Maleficent sidestepped out of the way, letting it past, and followed after it. Curiosity having consumed her temper for the time being. Any distraction to keep her from eating someone. The tiny bones were always murder to get out of her teeth.

The boxy little growling thing pulled to a halt outside the diner and a hatch on the side was thrust open.

Regina hauled herself out of the car. She wore a variation of her Gucci-Hitler-Youth uniform and groaned when she saw Snow.

It was far too early for this.

She looked up at Maleficent towering over her, purple scales still rattling in irritation and then over at Emma whose head also hovered several feet above her own.

She grunted in the back of her throat and then turned to the diner, making a beeline for the coffee machine. Freezing when Emma’s voice rattled her down to her bones.

 **“What are you _wearing?_ ”** Emma glanced at the squad car that Maleficent was cautiously tapping with her claws, setting the entire car to rocking. **“Why do you have the squad car?”**

Regina turned, her hands going to her temples and tried to will away the headache that was busy trying to crush her skull like a tin can. She inhaled a deep breath, hoping that the Storybrooke magic would infuse her with some patience. She had a magical hangover that would fell a –well- a dragon and her tolerance was in short supply.

“I’ll get you some.” Ruby squeezed her shoulder on her way by and Regina smiled, letting her hand brush over Ruby’s waist as she passed her.

“It’s my uniform.” Regina took off her huge sunglasses and then changed her mind when the dim grey light of Storybrooke stabbed into her retinas like a vengeance of tiny needles. “David deputised me.”

“He _what?!”_

Regina actually convulsively flinched at such a loud noise and Maleficent took a meaningful step towards Snow in rebuke.

“Qui- _et_!” Regina hissed, clutching at her head again. “I do believe you heard me perfectly well. David needed help running the town since you had disappeared and I was handily available.”

“He trusted you?” Snow’s scepticism was plain and Regina wasn’t so hungover that she couldn’t bare all of her teeth in a malicious grin.

“I do believe your dear husband trusts me with his very life.”

Regina turned when Ruby jogged down the steps –a _gigantic_ \- cup of coffee in her hands and she gratefully accepted the tar thick substance, gulping it down despite its scalding temperature. Not happy about the hand Ruby laid on her forehead, but tolerating it in a move that surprised everyone who hadn’t been there the past few weeks.

“You’re burning up. I thought it was David’s shift anyway.”

“I’m fine. Recharging always makes me hotter.” Regina waved it away between gulps of coffee. “Besides, I was under the mistaken impression that it was my turn to let a True Love relearn how to make his partner scream herself hoarse.” Regina cast a glance at Snow over the top of her sunglasses. “Imagine my disappointment when I find it takes him less than a morning.”

“Oh GAWD, Reggie!” Ruby pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Cannot unsee!”

“What?” Regina swilled her coffee cup at Snow. “It’s not my fault that Daniel set the bar so high.”

“Yeah, well, David ain’t super human.” Ruby muttered, trying to smother her grin in the face of Snow’s dawning comprehension.

“We were only gone three days.” Regina defended herself and then looked up at Emma. “You and Henry are both welcome to stay at the manor whilst your parents,” Regina gave a slow and salacious smirk, “reintroduce themselves.”

“Regina, that is none of your business!” Snow finally got over her gaping and blasted Regina. Though she wisely kept her tone quiet enough not to harm the sorceress’ ears since Maleficent’s shadow still loomed over her.

“I’m being nice!” Regina defended herself. She looked over at Ruby. “Aren’t I?”

Ruby shrugged and lifted a hand rocking it back and forth to indicate her opinion wasn’t certain.

“Well, comparatively at least.” Regina unhooked a set of handcuffs from her belt and tossed them to Snow. “Give them to David, I’m sure he can find a use for them if you still have that wrought iron bedframe…which I suppose is certainly more likely since you haven’t been up all night trying to break it.” Regina grinned into her coffee cup whilst Snow sputtered.

“This is you being nice?!”

“I am HELPING!” Regina threw up her free hand. She looked up at Emma. “You’d think after thirty years without a decent tumble, she’d be more grateful.”

Emma gave in and snorted fire in time with her laugh.

“Emma!”

“ **What?! She’s funny.”** Emma defended herself and turned to Regina. Attempting to gentle her voice as much as possible in deference to her hangover. **“Thanks for the offer, but Henry and I can bunk at the guesthouse. Can’t we Ruby?”** Emma looked over at the werewolf but it was Regina that answered.

“Best not. Mal will be staying there and she’s even more territorial than I am.”

 **“I’m sure I can tolerate the whelp for a day or two.”** Maleficent grumbled in her defence.

“I think you’re seriously underestimating how pleased David is to see Snow.” Regina drained her coffee cup right down to the grounds.

“What would you know about it?!” Snow snapped. Her face crimson.

“About sex?” Regina arched a brow at Snow. “Things that would make your hair stand on end, girl.”

Snow’s brow lowered in a fierce frown and Ruby suddenly stepped between them and looked Regina in the eye.

“You’re going to make me bite her.”

Regina rocked back on her heels and then nodded. Her mouth twisted at her game spoiled but she didn’t want to rouse Ruby’s protective instincts if she goaded Snow into lashing out. Snow acting against Regina would send Ruby’s wolf into overdrive and –as loathsome as Regina found the princess- she didn’t want Ruby to lose control of herself. It was her greatest fear and Regina wasn’t willing to pay that price.

Even if it came with the bonus of seeing Snow messily devoured over a ten metre radius.

Still, Mal was there and dragons got hungry, maybe she’d get lucky yet.

“Fine. No more helping.” Regina restricted herself to one last sniff of disdain in Snow’s direction and then turned to the two dragons. “So…you’d better turn back if we want to have any hope of managing to feed you both.”

 **“Here?”** Mal looked up and down the street, seeing the surreptitious glances the clean-up crews were sending their way. **“Now?”**

 “You have somewhere you’d rather be?” Regina looked up at Emma. Grinning. “I imagine you’re enjoying yourself but it’s probably best to turn back now whilst you still remember what it is like to be human.”

“ **Yeah,”** Emma heaved a sigh that gusted magic, **“I suppose so.** ”

“You show and I’ll tell?” Regina looked up at Maleficent, still grinning and the purple dragon frowned with narrowed eyes. What the hell was she up to?

**“It would probably be easier.”**

“Outstanding.” Regina handed her coffee cup to Ruby and strode towards Emma, clapping her hands together and rubbing them as if to warm them. She lifted them expectantly.

It took Emma a moment to figure out what was expected of her and then she stooped, putting her face in Regina’s hands again. Regina’s magic thrummed against the boiling force under Emma’s scales.

“Relax.” Regina told her firmly. “Close your eyes.”

Emma did as she was bid, huge sapphire eyes closing.

“Now, I need you to listen to Mal. She’s going to change and –just like flying- I want you to think less with your higher mind. I should be able to give you a shove in the right direction.”

“This won’t hurt her. Will it?”

“Most likely no.” Regina kept her voice under rigid control when Snow sounded a lot closer than the sorceress would like. “Ruby, pull her back.”

Emma’s sharp draconian ears picked up the tell-tale sounds of Ruby’s hand closing over Snow’s arm and their retreating steps.

“Ready?”

**“Uh, I think so. What exactly is Mal supposed to sound like?”**

“ **Like this.”** Mal’s voice thrummed into her ears and Emma jerked, nearly yanking her head from Regina’s hold when a deep sound blasted from within the dragon.

A deep, singing and pure note that rose from the dragon in a frothing and billowing wave. It boiled up from deep within her bones, a chorus of power that sounded like the planet when it turned. An ancient sound, older than even all the creatures on Earth. As old as the planet, older even than that. The Song of the Spheres.

Mal’s magic came from the stars. The same stars whose dust it was that made all of them. The same carbon that burned billions of miles away in space, with the fiery fusion of endless sunlight, was the same carbon that formed them. All their elements the same. All connected.

Magic in its purest form.

Emma jolted when she felt the song rising in herself. A thundering tidal wave of it. It roared up inside her with a terrifying power and Emma struggled suddenly, wanting to hold it in. She couldn’t possibly survive that. It was going off like a nova. It would tear her apart. No matter how strong she was as a dragon.

“Easy. I’m right here.” Regina’s voice cut through the panic like a scalpel and Emma abruptly calmed. The wave of power didn’t seem so scary all of a sudden.

Regina’s voice had been different. Softer. Her thumbs stroked the soft scales around Emma’s eyes and she hushed her. It took Emma a moment to realise where she’d heard that tone before. She’d heard it with longing when it had been said to other kids. A mother’s voice, telling her everything was going to be okay…and Emma believed her.

Emma couldn’t see it, wrapped up in whatever Regina was doing to keep her calm, but Mal sucked in a deep breath, summoning her power. She sat up, rearing up onto her hind legs, tail swinging out for balance and her wings spreading. She tilted her head back, magic already beginning to smoke from between her teeth. She gathered herself for a moment, making the spell as loud as she could for Emma’s benefit, and then unleashed the hissing torrent of magic.

It boiled up from within her, clouding about her head and spiralling lower. Twining about her entire massive body from nose to tail to the talons on the ends of each wing.

The magic thrummed, shimmering and then abruptly imploded, sucking back beneath the dragon’s skin. Her softer human skin. Dragons were not the type to waste power.

“Oh, uh, wow.”

Mal looked with long lashed violet eyes and arched a brow at Ruby. The werewolf’s eyes were wide and gold and she scanned Mal from head to toe before suddenly looking away.

“There, that wasn’t so hard now was it?” Regina stepped back from Emma, that grin even wider on her face.

“Uh, yeah, that was pretty cool a-a-AACK!” Emma shrieked and clapped her hands over herself. “Regina, I’m NAKED!”

“Observant too.” Regina smirked and Emma growled at her.

“You did this on purpose!”

“Hardly.” Regina rolled her eyes, lying like a damn rug. “Summoning clothes from nothing on top of a true shift? Not for beginners. Even I don’t have the strength to direct that much magic so specifically in someone else. In me? Yes. You? No.”

Emma snatched Regina’s long leather coat when the sorceress held it out to her. She shrugged it on lightning quick and then pointed to Mal accusingly.

The dragon stood in her stunning human form. Tall and statuesque, waves of glossy golden hair tumbling down her back to her waist, her purplish blue eyes sparking silver. They were the most alien thing about her. The iris the colour of violets, shimmering with blue and silver like crushed diamonds, and the sclera a bright and faintly glowing green. Her face was sculpted with classically beautiful features, straight nose, high cheekbones and a full mouth. Her golden skin was flawless and all of it –absolutely all of it- was on shameless display.

“I do not have clothes to summon here.” Mal defended herself with a frown and snorted smoke at the glares Snow was levelling at her. She snarled. _“What?”_

“You did that on purpose.” Snow spoke hotly. “You could have said.”

“Why would I have?” Mal, not bothered about her nudity in the slightest, folded her arms over her chest in an expression of exasperation more than modesty. “It’s nothing you don’t have yourself.”

“Uh, here.”

Mal swung her head around, golden hair flying, and her expression softened when she saw Ruby holding out her flannel shirt to her.

“Thank you, but I am not cold.” Mal shrugged with a smile, showing off many white teeth. “Dragons are fairly weatherproof.”

“Yes, but the peasants are about to have a seizure at your little display.” Regina resisted the urge to go over and roll Doc’s tongue back into his mouth and took the shirt from Ruby, holding it out so Mal could slide her arms into it.

Mal rolled her eyes and turned her back, shrugging into the shirt with Regina’s help and moved to button it. It was luckily quite a long style, hanging almost to mid-thigh on her though Mal’s human shape was decidedly more exaggerated than Ruby’s athletic frame. The buttons strained over the curves of her hips and chest.

Mal turned to see Regina.

“Better?”

“Well, I’m not obliged to arrest you at least.” Regina smirked and waved towards the diner. “Breakfast.”

“By the stars, yes!” Mal waited on no further invitation and made a beeline for the diner, Regina following her, her cell phone already clapped to her ear.

She supposed, if David wasn’t busy in the way he wanted, she might as well put him to use.

Regina steered Mal to her favoured booth at the back of the diner and pushed her down into the bench before she could give someone a coronary if she bent over a little too far.

“They make food here?” Mal looked about the diner with interest. This was a very strange world. She didn’t entirely dislike it though. Some things were very interesting.

“Lots of food.” Regina promised, listening to the ringing on the other end of the line.

Ruby swung in through the door, looking like she was trying not to collapse in fits of laughter when she held the door open for Snow and the now beet red Emma.

Oh yes, some things were very interesting indeed.

“I was just warming up to you.” Emma sulked and threw herself into the booth on the opposite side to Mal though she spoke to Regina.

“I shall try to contain my disappointment –hello? David?” Regina was distracted from needling the Saviour further and turned away to speak to the Sheriff, ignoring Snow’s glare to the back of her head.

“This is a feast hall?” Mal laced her fingers together on top of the table and looked at Emma.

“Yeah.” Emma finished buttoning up Regina’s jacket. It _was_ a really nice jacket at least. “Though we call it a diner here.”

“Die-ner.” Mal murmured and studied the walls, inhaling deeply. She could smell all kinds of things that seemed vaguely familiar and yet subtly alien. All of them smelled delicious in her starved state. “I like it.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Mal turned when a gruff voice issued from the end of the table and she studied the old woman who was actually millennia younger than Mal’s own age.

“Werewolf.” Mal realised with a frown and a narrowing of purple eyes. She could smell something else, the wolf was too big in this matriarch. She should have stopped turning decades ago judging by her age, but Mal could still see the shadow of the wolf in her shape.

“Dragon.” Granny returned levelly. “You done with wrecking my town?”

Mal arched a brow at the distinct lack of fear from the mortal creature. She was the Dragon of the West, she was not accustomed to such tiny creatures speaking so easily to her.

“That depends on whether or not I must go hunting for food or if it shall be brought to me.” Mal smiled sweetly and bit out. “Quickly.”

“Manners.” Regina returned to the table and took a seat beside Mal. She looked up at Granny with her winning smile. “Four of everything?”

“That’s a mighty tall order for a place with no cook, you know.” Granny propped a hand on her hip and leaned on the table with the other.

Regina sighed and laboured to her feet.

“No, I’m kidding.” Granny’s voice softened a little and she pushed Regina back down in her seat. “I suppose I owe you for stopping that one and bringing them back anyway.” Granny nodded to Mal and then Snow and Emma.

“Glad to see my efforts are appreciated by somebody.” Regina spoke archly and grinned when Granny just scowled at her before turning and heading back to the bar, calling the order through the hatch to Ruby taking her turn in the kitchen.

“Thanks.”

Regina turned with surprise when Emma spoke.

“Oh, I’m still pissed about the naked on Main Street thing,” Emma pointed at Regina who just grinned again, “but you hauled our butts out the fire yesterday so…thanks.”

Regina studied Emma a long moment and then arched a brow. Searching for an insult and unable to find one.

“She means it.” Mal supplied helpfully and Regina nodded slowly.

“You are welcome.” Regina spoke somewhat stiltedly. Gratitude was not a reaction she had been prepared for.

“Thank you, Regina.”

Regina stared fixedly at Emma for a long moment and then –slowly- turned to see Snow studying the table and rubbing at her arm.

“I…your life would be easier without helping us and you did anyway so…thank you.”

Regina tilted her head as if she’d been confronted with an animal that she’d never seen before and she hummed in the back of her throat to stall for time.

“Never seeing either of you again would have hurt Henry and David.” Regina looked away and shrugged a shoulder. “I did it for them, not for you.”

“Very gracious, Gina.” Mal drawled and earned an elbow in her ribs for her troubles.

“I was just trying to say…”

“I think we can all agree that our lives would have turned out very differently had you simply _not_ said anything at all.” Regina spoke with a deceptively mild tone and then rose to leave the table when Granny clattered a tray of drinks for them onto the bar.

“Wow, this isn’t awkward at all.” Emma scrunched a hand through her hair and hitched at the sleeves of the jacket that was a little too small for her.

“I think she’s doing very well.” Mal defended her friend. “She’s gone a whole half an hour glass without trying to murder anyone. She _has_ changed.”

“It’s just ‘half an hour’ here.” Emma smiled.

“Ah.” Mal nodded, she had a lot to learn.

“Protein shake, soda and a half of whiskey.” Regina dished out the drinks to Snow, Emma and Mal respectively. Clapping a fourth frothing drink down for herself.

“Protein shake…?” Snow lifted it and looked up at Regina, who shrugged and thumped the tray under her arm.

“I don’t make the orders. Granny said that’s what you’d need so you shall have it. If you want to complain _you_ can tell her.” Regina spun on her heel and swept back to the bar to give the tray back.

“See? Progress. When I last knew Gina, she’d have flayed you for questioning her.” Mal raised her half pint of whiskey and drank deeply of it.

“Isn’t it a little early?” Emma grimaced when the dragon downed the fifty proof like it was water.

“Early for what?” Mal looked genuinely confused.

“Never mind.”

“Dragons don’t get drunk.” Regina dropped back down into her seat. “She just likes the taste.”

“And it converts into fuel for flame so readily.” Mal agreed and drank more of her whiskey.

“There you are!” Henry burst in through the door to the diner and nearly sprinted across it, sliding to a halt by their booth. He deflated a little when he saw Emma in human form. “Aww, I wanted to see you turn back.”

Emma just shook her head and Regina sniggered into her cola float.

“Well, I guess at least now I can hug you.” Henry didn’t waste time on manners or asking –he’d been spending a lot of time with Regina after all- and boosted himself up onto the bench, stepping nimbly over Snow and squeezing himself into the space between his grandmother and his birth mother. He plopped down to sit and wasted no time in wrapping his arms around Emma’s waist, squeezing her tightly.

He favoured Snow with a similar hug and then grinned over at Regina.

She managed a tight smile in return.

“Thanks, mom. I know you didn’t want them back.”

“I want you happy.” Regina said instead and suddenly looked uncomfortable. She glanced over at Mal.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’m going to help Ruby.” Regina took the ready excuse and then sidled out of the booth.

She had thought she’d have been able to cope with both the Saviour and her mother returning but…no. Just, not right now. She’d rather cook breakfast for the ravening horde.

Henry twisted to watch her go and then turned to look back at Mal.

“Is she okay?”

Mal sipped her drink, watching Regina retreat to the safety of the kitchen, and mulled the question over. She nodded slowly.

“She’s recovering.” The dragon finally settled on. “She is more whole now than I have ever known her to be at any rate.”

“Good.” Henry grinned and then sat forward. “So you’re really a dragon?”

Mal smirked and nodded. “Just as you are really a prince.”

Henry blinked, he had never thought of it that way. He had always preferred to be a knight.

“Will you take me flying sometime?”

“Perhaps.” Mal shrugged a shoulder.

“She won’t.” Snow said firmly. “Regina would never allow it.”

“She might!” Henry protested. “She’s letting David teach me how to fence and Daniel’s teaching me how to brawl and Merida’s showing me how to use bows and arrows.”

“Who’s Merida?” Emma frowned at the name she didn’t recognise.

“Merida Dunbroch, she’s a Scottish Princess. Her mom turns into a bear sometimes.”

“I’ll bet she and Regina get along really well. So much in common.” Emma smirked and sipped from her own drink.

“They put up with each other because Daniel works for Lady Eleanor –Merida’s mom- and she said she wanted to meet Daniel’s fiancé before she knew that his fiancé was mom.”

Emma blinked at that but nodded as if she took it in her stride. Something she had learned to do since entering Storybrooke just a few short months ago. God, had it really just been months? It felt a LOT longer.

“Daniel’s teaching you to ‘brawl’?” Snow had to clarify.

“Oh sure, he’s _really_ good at it.” Henry grinned. “He already taught me how to fall right.”

“There’s a correct way to fall?” Snow arched a brow and frowned when both Henry and Emma nodded.

“T-bone.” Emma rolled her shoulder in a shrug when Snow just blinked at her. “You tuck your chin and slam your arms down as you hit the deck. Redistributes the force of the fall. Stops you from getting winded.”

“Can you brawl too?!” Henry turned to look at her, delighted.

“I know a bit of self-defence.” Emma shrugged her shoulder again. “Not quite the same thing.”

“Henry!” David struggled in through the doorway of the diner, laden with bags, and sighed at his grandson. “I told you to wait.”

“Sorry.” Henry winced at the rebuke and then tried a winning smile. “Emma’s back to normal.”

“If you can call anything in this town normal.” Emma shrugged.

“Glad to hear it.” David stopped by the table and smiled down at his wife and daughter. He held up the bags he toted. “Clothes.”

“Oh, yes please!” Emma shooed vigorously at Snow and Henry so she could dive out from behind the bench. “I’ve been wearing the same damn jeans and jacket for a month. I am _done_ with them.”

Emma practically snatched the bag from David and began to root through it, more than a little glad to see fresh, clean smelling, clothes. There were several sets and she and Mal were _about_ the same size in height if not in bust so the dragon wouldn’t have to go about in her scanties for the rest of the day either.

Ye gods and little fishes, there was even a hairbrush, a toothbrush and –Emma gave a little whimper of joy- toothpaste.

Emma engulfed David in a sudden hug that caught him more than a little by surprise.

“Best dad ever.” Emma murmured to him and then spun away, unaware of how she’d just rocked Charming’s world. “Come on, I’m going to introduce you to the joys of toilet paper.”

Emma grabbed a confused Mal by the wrist and bodily hauled her from the booth. Mal yelped but recovered herself gamely and trailed after Emma to the bathroom.

It was a very strange world this.

David watched them go and then turned back to look down at Snow and Henry. He grinned at his grandson and beamed at his wife.

“Hey, I didn’t expect you to leave so early.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her mouth before sitting down in the booth and holding out his arm.

Snow smiled and sat down in the booth beside him, tucking herself close.

“Sorry, I was worried about Emma. I came here to see if Regina had already turned her back and then they both touched down outside.”

“Emma’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.” David pressed a kiss to Snow’s temple, murmuring into her skin. “Where’s Regina?”

Decidedly the wrong thing to ask.

 Snow stiffened and pulled away a little to look him in the eye with a slight frown. He was saved by Henry answering.

“She’s in the kitchen cooking with Ruby.” Henry plopped down into the opposite side of the booth and worked his arms out of his hooded sweater, pulling it up and off, mussing his hair along the way. He clapped it down with a hasty hand before someone else could help.

“You too?” Snow looked at Henry’s tee shirt and he grinned, sitting back and puffing out his chest so Snow could read the slogan she was fast growing familiar with.

 _Team Reggie_ glared back at her.

“That’s good.” David smirked and wriggled his own jacket from his shoulders.

“And YOU?!” Snow stared at him askance when he revealed his own tee shirt. They were of the same style and font as Ruby’s, but the mens’ tee shirts obviously came in black with white font rather than white with black font.

Of course Ruby had colour coded them.

“Of course.” David didn’t rise to the bait and rummaged in the paper sack he had brought with him instead. “Here’s yours.”

“I am NOT…”

“Snow.” David’s voice cut through her protest like a scalpel. “Put the damn shirt on.”

Snow blinked at him. He’d…he’d _never_ used that tone with her.

“What has she done to everyone?” Snow looked between Charming and Henry.

Henry she could sort of understand, he was always going to be more sympathetic to Regina than even Snow had been, but it was like they had all just forgotten the decades of torment.

“It’s not what she’s done _to_ us, it’s what she’s done _for_ us. Which is more than anyone might have ever expected of her.” David nudged the tee shirt closer to her. “She brought you and Emma back to me, my family’s whole again, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what she’s done these past few weeks. She really has changed. She’s really trying. The least we can do is try too.”

“Charming, you _hate_ her.”

“I did, yeah, for a long time, but that was before I knew her.”

“ _I_ thought I knew her, look how well that turned out.” Snow threw her arm wide. “Look around!”

“Snow, you look around, tell me what you see.”

Snow opened her mouth to protest but, when he shot her that look, she did as he’d asked. She glanced about the diner and shrugged.

“I see…people eating, talking. I see folks outside cleaning up the mess she made. I see Granny behind the bar…”

“People eating food Regina’s cooked. Relaxed and talking whilst she’s just a few yards away. People out in the street helping to repair the damage wrought when she saved all of our lives from a rampaging dragon. A few weeks ago, they’d have blamed her and been after her head. Now they’re helping.” David raised his eyebrows at her and Snow scowled at him.

“I still don’t buy it.”

“You don’t have to. You just have to wear the shirt.” David held it out to her. “For me.”

Snow heaved a sigh and pressed her lips together. She looked between David and Henry. Noticing the way Henry watched her with a breath caught in his chest.

“Fine.” Snow took the tee shirt from David and shrugged out of her cardigan, pulling it on over her button down shirt with the frilly collar.

Both Henry and David beamed at her and she rolled her eyes and shook her head. This was all just too weird…but she couldn’t quite stifle the spark of hope deep in her chest. The spark that meant, this time, Regina was on the level. That it wasn’t more lies. That she really was changing.

“Thank you.” David kissed her again and Snow smiled.

Regina’s jabs came back to haunt her. It had been a _long_ time since she and Charming…

“That,” Emma thumped down into the bench beside Henry opposite her parents, “was worth the wait.”

Mal sat down beside her and studied her chest with a careful scrutiny. She reached up and hefted both breasts in her hands before letting them drop. They definitely didn’t drop far.

“You’ll go blind.” Charming smirked at her and she levelled a frown at him.

“Bras are strange.”

“Yours more than most.” Emma slung her arm around Henry’s shoulders. “I wish mine could adjust itself to fit me. Then again, being able to will myself into a glamazon figure might not be terrible either. Where’s breakfast?”

“What is a glamazon?” Mal frowned.

“Someone who is improbably pretty.” Emma smirked. “Not many women I know have girl abs _and_ a chest a centrefold would pay a hundred grand for.”

Mal just looked at her. She had understood some of the words but the meaning had mostly passed her by.

“Hey,” Ruby dashed across the diner and picked up one of the empty tables nearby, clattering it down on the end of theirs, “where are your shirts?”

She turned away and picked up another table, scooting it together to add to the collection.

“Here.” David rummaged in his paper bag again and handed over another two tee shirts that should fit Mal and Emma.

They accepted with a little confusion but then grinned with dawning comprehension and hurried to tug them on. Mal watched Emma to see how it was done with this strange new tunic and pulled it on over the top of Ruby’s shirt that she still wore.

She liked the scent of the werewolf mixing with her own.

She decided such things were beneath her pondering for now and watched said werewolf clatter chairs around the tables she’d added on. Speaking quickly and in a low tone to David.

“Reggie says that Daniel is on his way and I texted Rachel, she’s bringing Eugene. They’ll be here in a few.” Ruby began to clatter knives and forks onto the table and flitted back and forth between the bar in a blur of werewolf speed, clunking condiments and baskets of bread rolls in front of everyone.

“She hasn’t seen yours?” David nodded to Ruby’s own tee shirt and she grinned, plucking at her apron.

“Got it covered.”

David snorted at the terrible pun and Ruby spun guiltily when the bell over the door jingled. She grinned when she saw Daniel prowl into the diner.

“Danny, shirt?” Ruby practically bounced over to him, brimming over with excitement and Daniel smirked at her antics.

He unzipped his leather jacket and held it wide so she could see his _Team Reggie_ shirt stretching across his chest, the dim green light of his scar glowing through it. 

“Haaaa!” Ruby giggled and clapped her hands, hopping from one foot to the other. “She’s gonna blow her stack!”

Daniel just smirked and shook his head at her antics and watched her pass him by and duck back into the kitchen before Regina missed her. Daniel continued his way on to the table that had fast become reserved for the Mills/Charming Conglomerate.

“Good morning.” Daniel took a seat so he could see the door and sit beside Mal.

She nodded to him and the others bid him good morning as well.

Emma leaned forward a little to study him for a long and curious moment but sat hurriedly back when she realised she was staring but Snow just couldn’t tear her eyes away.

“It really is you.”

“In the flesh.” Daniel shrugged out of his jacket. “Most of it’s even mine.”

David snorted at the joke that you had to have been there to get and squeezed Snow’s shoulders when she looked suddenly upset.

“Not right now.” He murmured to her when she opened her mouth and Snow let out a sigh that seemed quietly relieved.

“So, Rachel and Eugene would beeee…?” Emma leaned forward again to look up and down both sides of the table, opening the question to all.

“Rachel Towers and her husband.” Daniel offered. “In the Enchanted Forest, she was known as the Princess Rapunzel and Eugene was a thief of some renown. Here they are a doctor and a bartender respectively.”

“Wait, Rachel as in the girl Regina adopted?”

“Woman and yes.” Daniel nodded.

“It’s cool having a big sister.” Henry grinned. “Even if it did just happen yesterday.”

“You’re just collecting family left, right and centre, aren’t you?” Emma grinned down at him to show it wasn’t a barb and he smiled back at her.

“Sorry we’re late!” The bell jangled again when Rachel pushed her way through it and hurriedly shrugged out of her jacket, trotting to the table.

Eugene followed at a more sedate and surly pace.

“I could dress a three year old with a toothache faster than I could convince him to wear the shirt.”

Eugene thumped down into a seat beside Snow and levelled a glare at the entire table before mulishly removing his own coat.

Rachel sat down with a hefty sigh, shooting a sharp glance at her husband to man up and pretend to enjoy himself, and then grinned at the rest of them.

“I take it all is going to plan.”

“She seems to be entirely oblivious.” David said.

“She knows we’re up to _something._ ” Daniel corrected.

“She thinks it’s a surprise party for Snow and Emma.” Henry piped up.

“Why?” Snow looked at him.

“To welcome you back?” Henry frowned at her. “Which we should do anyway, I think. People were looking forward to you coming back.”

“No, I meant why does she think that?”

“I’m not sure.” Henry shrugged innocently. “It might have something to do with me telling her that.”

Daniel chuckled and looked over to the saloon doors leading to the kitchen just as they burst open and Ruby slinked out before they could clap closed again on her and held no less than three trays brimming with food in her arms and balanced on top of her head.

Werewolf reflexes were useful for more than travelling at high speeds without splattering into something.

“Brunch time!” She hurried over to the table and set one tray down, beginning to clatter platters and dishes into the centre of the table.

“Really, Ruby, I know you’re excited to have your favourite chew toy back, but there’s no need to be so undig…ni…fied.” Regina stilled in the action of settling one of the platters down when her brain caught up with what her eyes had been screaming at it. “What the hell are you all wearing?”

The table was a study of innocence as they all looked back at her without saying anything.

“Ta-dah!” Ruby threw off her apron to reveal her own shirt and Regina flinched back from her, nearly dropping the tray she still held laden with food. She barely glanced at Daniel when he reached out and relieved her of it.

“What the hell are you wearing?!” Regina said again, louder this time.

“ _Team Reggie_ shirts.” Ruby plucked hers away from her chest a little, reading hurriedly upside down to make sure she wasn’t lying. “I _told_ you I was getting them made.”

“I didn’t think you would actually do it! Take them off!” Regina looked wildly about herself. Increasingly aware of the few other patrons in the diner that were beginning to stare. She felt her hackles begin to rise. She was on edge as it was, Snow and Emma returning, and now this.

Being made a mockery of was something she couldn’t really handle right now. Not when her body was sucking in magic almost faster than she could process it.

“Why?” Ruby looked confused and was beginning to look a little hurt.

“Because…it’s…” Regina looked helplessly at Daniel who just looked right back at her. He wasn’t helping her out of this one. Traitor, he was wearing one too. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Being your family is ridiculous?” Ruby definitely looked hurt now.

“No, I didn’t…”

“Fine.” Ruby stepped back and lifted her hands as if to ward her off. “Fine. I guess it didn’t mean what I thought it meant.”

She turned and walked quickly back to the kitchen, her hand lifted to her face. She looked suspiciously like she was wiping something from her cheeks.

Regina stared after her, mouth hanging open and then turned to look helplessly at the table.

They all looked at her with a little condemnation in their eyes.

“What just happened?”

“You know what happened.” Daniel spoke quietly and Regina looked down at him for a long moment. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don’t think I don’t know that this was _your_ idea.” She levelled a finger at him and then spun away, heading for the kitchen after Ruby.

“Well,” Emma said in the silence that followed, “that was a car wreck.”

“It’s fine.” Daniel reached out to pick up plates and begin passing them around.

“ _That_ was fine?” Snow jerked her thumb after Regina and the swinging saloon doors leading into the kitchen.

“Uh-huh.” Henry was doling out the cutlery. “You have to trick mom into this kind of thing. She gets all stubborn and mad and sad otherwise.”

“Ruby was acting?” Emma frowned. She hadn’t thought that the other woman could cry on demand.

“Not entirely. She had been hoping that Regina would accept it without needing to be talked around.” Daniel shrugged a shoulder.

“She has just been reminded of how far her sister still has to go.” Mal said quietly. “I am sure you are all aware of how good Regina is at pretending to be sane and well, the best I have ever seen. It will not be comfortable for the little wolf to learn that Regina has been pretending still.”

“She’s not pretending!” Henry spoke fiercely and then faltered a little. “She just doesn’t…believe in herself as much as the rest of us do.”

Mal looked down at him and narrowed her eyes. Something rang a faint bell in her head and she pondered it. Something about… she shook her head. Perhaps it was just this strange world. Such a thing hadn’t happened in millennia. Surely it could not happen here.

Her green and purple gaze drifted to the doorway to the kitchen and the magical trail she could scent in Regina’s wake.

Surely not.       

                

 


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39 – Dreams and Only Dreams**

 

“Ruby?” Regina pushed her way into the kitchens and was met head on by a thunderous glare from Granny. She held up her hands in surrender. “I’m here to fix it.”

Granny said nothing, her disapproving frown more than enough, and jerked her head towards the fire escape leading out into the alley beyond.

Regina rallied herself into hurrying across the kitchen, clattering out of the door and into the alley. She looked up and down it, wondering which way her sister had disappeared.

Regina’s jaw clenched when she realised her thought process.

Her sister.

Part of her family and…that was what Ruby had been trying to show her.

Regina growled and twisted this way and that. She had no idea which way Ruby had gone and –had she turned wolf- very little hope of catching up with her.

Well, there was no reason to give up.

Regina tilted her head back and inhaled deeply. She wasn’t quite up for magical shenanigans just yet, her head was still throbbing, but there was always a part of her that was a werewolf and most of that was in her nose.

She cast this way and that, glad that no one could see her, and then followed the scent of wolf.

She walked to the end of the alley, following her nose still, and onto the street beyond. Her pace was careful and she had to stop and orientate herself several times before she realised where Ruby was headed.

She found her, exactly where she had expected her to be, lying on the front porch of the guest house. She was stretched out on her front, her chin resting on her paws and her tail tucked around herself.

The biggest, saddest, wolf you ever did see.

Regina heaved herself up the steps (she had really been looking forward to _sitting down_ in the diner) and dropped herself down beside Ruby.

Ruby heaved a sigh but didn’t move or acknowledge her in any other way.

“I’m sorry you’re upset with me.”

Ruby snuffed out a breath that translated into something quite rude in the language of wolves.

Regina ignored it.

“You caught me by surprise. I don’t like surprises.”

Ruby rolled her golden eyes and shuffled her chin so she was facing away from Regina.

“I thought…I thought it was a joke. I still don’t expect kindness over cruelty. I’d been trying to wrap my head around Snow and Emma being back. Been trying to shore up my defences against giving up all the…family I’d gained in their absence and then…the shirts. I thought it was a joke.”

_You’re my sister. Why would I be so cruel to you?_

“Up until recently,” Regina picked her words carefully, “family has never been synonymous with safety. Nor caring. Nor love. I’m still quite broken. I’m sorry you had to realise that.”

 _You_ were _broken._ Ruby lifted her huge head and twisted around to rest her chin on Regina’s lap. _You’re getting better. We did the shirt thing to show that we’re not going anywhere. You’re stuck with us, big sis. We’re not budging. Not even for Emma and Snow._

“You’re her best friend. You made the rank of number two most wanted in my kingdom before Charming came along. I would have killed you both if given the chance. How can you…care for me as well as her?”

 _It’s not one or the other. Granted, things just got a whole lot more complicated but…I don’t know. Snow doesn’t need me like you do. I don’t need her the way I need you. Snow is family but she’s not Pack._ Ruby lifted her head from Regina’s lap and shuffled around, finding herself a more comfortable position as she tried to explain. _You’re here now. You came back from the dark for Daniel and for Henry but you stayed for yourself. We’re not about to betray that. We saw how rough it was, we saw what you did for us. You stood by Charming when he asked it of you, you saved me at Wolf’s Time, you handled Hyde when he turned up, you took care of the Faeries and you brought Snow and Emma back._

“I have to start all over again with them.” Regina canted to the side and rested her head on Ruby’s flank. The werewolf rolled onto her side so Regina had a better pillow. “They haven’t seen any of that, they just know me as the Evil Queen. I’m going to have to jump through hoops to prove myself and…I just don’t want to. Emma, I can perhaps warm up to but Snow? I know Daniel has been brought back but the loss, the madness, I suffered is no less real for it.”

 _We saw it._ Ruby’s voice was quiet in Regina’s mind but regained strength as she continued. _We, your family, saw you change. It’s not in your head, it wasn’t imaginary, you have changed and you’ve worked so hard at it. We are a_ proper _family. We’ll never abandon you and we’ll never hurt you._

“Never is a long time.” Regina closed her eyes against the bright sky overhead and absorbed the sensation of Ruby’s ribs rising and falling under her. It was very soothing to her hangover.

_Family is forever._

“Don’t you threaten me.”

Ruby chuffed a laugh and they lay together like that for a while. Regina thought she might have dozed because Ruby’s voice jolted her from a pleasant haze when she next spoke.

_Are we okay?_

Regina opened her eyes and looked up at the sky again. She mulled the question over, giving it careful thought. She answered slowly.

“I think…we will be. If…if you stay with me. If you are what you say you are.”

 _You keep trying and so will we. I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy. Not for you. Your nutty brain would implode if you didn’t have something in your life that you just didn’t_ get. _If family is that thing, hey, we’re here to help._

“You’ve been talking to Belle.” Regina rolled her eyes but she was smiling.

_There was mention of astrophysics being worked out in your head. Where were you whilst I was trying to figure out the ‘accounting’ system that Granny keeps?_

“Not even geniuses can figure out that woman’s math.” Regina shook her head and Ruby chuffed a laugh again.

_We should probably head back._

“If you want to.”

 _If_ you _want to._

“I’m starving.” 

_God, me too._

Regina grinned and sat up, allowing Ruby to get to her feet and give herself a good shake to settle her fur. Regina took a little longer to get to her feet and Ruby’s tail whisked the air in a wolf version of a grin.

_Need a lift?_

“Shut up. I’m old now and I get tired.” Regina huffed out a breath when her bones creaked and Ruby gave a soft whine.

_You’re okay though, right? You didn’t, I dunno, tap out your batteries or anything?_

“I’m fine.” Regina scrunched a hand in the ruff of fur around Ruby’s neck and smiled for her. “A little creaky whilst I recharge but I’ll be back to apocalyptic strength level in no time.”

 _Probably shouldn’t refer to it as that in front of Snow and Emma._ Ruby cocked her head and her mouth gaped, tongue lolling, in a smile. _I think the new you makes them nervous enough as it is._

“I make them nervous?”

_Oh, sure, Hostile-and-Uncooperative Regina they can deal with fine and dandy, THAT is the beast they know. Deputy Reggie, on the other hand, scares the spit out of them. I think they’re still half convinced that you’ve got us all under some spell._

“Maybe I do.” Regina waggled her fingers in Ruby’s direction. “Maybe this is all a ruse to get a new hearth rug.”

 _What, because Hyde and your bad self tore up the other one?_ Ruby snuffed a wolfish chuckle at Regina’s enthusiastic throat clearing. _Besides, there’s no way you’d cast a spell that would bring people closer to you. New leaf or not, you’d be a hermit if you didn’t have to come outside for vitamin D._

They crossed the street and rounded the bend back to the diner’s fire escape. It seemed like such a long time ago that Regina had been stood in that same alley trying to figure out who would frame a werewolf for murder. The first day she’d been a deputy, the first time she’d really been part of Ruby’s pack.

“I would also come out for a Jimmy Choo sale.” Regina defended herself. “You should change back, Granny _will_ have your hide if you leave fur in her kitchen.”

“Fine.” Ruby switched back to her human form and dusted herself off needlessly.

 Regina knew from experience that when their clothes came back from wherever it was the magic stored them while they were wolves, they never seemed to fit right for a few moments. She gave Ruby a moment to fidget with herself and held the door open when she finally seemed comfortable.

“Ready?” Ruby looked down at her and Regina realised that she was utterly serious.

Again, she gave the question a thorough consideration before she nodded once.

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Okay, it’s gonna be awkward but –what am I saying? Just sail through it like you always do.” Ruby shrugged and clattered up the steps into the diner, heading through the kitchen and back towards the brunch they had abandoned. Regina did hope there were some hashbrowns left.

She followed Ruby at a more sedate pace and hesitated just before the saloon doors leading out into the diner proper. She pursed her lips, did she have the magic for this?

Hell, some things were worth the price and –Regina smirked- it would confuse the hell out of Snow and Emma.

Regina stepped out into the diner, leaving smoke trails of purple magic in her wake, and ambled back to the table as if nothing was amiss. She ignored the wave of dizziness that even that small spell took out of her and sat beside Daniel, ignoring the stares she garnered.

Daniel smirked down at her and leaned down to press a kiss to her mouth.

“Thank you.” He murmured to her and she smiled.

“What can I say? The insanity is catching.”

“Nice shirt.” David’s voice was flat and Regina grinned, stealing a hash brown off Daniel’s plate and biting into it.

“I thought I’d follow the crowd.”

“Not a day in your life!” David laughed at her and Ruby turned away from talking to Rachel to see what the fuss was about.

She shrieked a laugh and clapped her hands when she saw what Regina was wearing and chuckled heartily to herself.

Regina rolled her eyes at Ruby’s antics but she was smiling.

She sat there, looking ridiculous, in a hot pink tee shirt embedded with purple glitter. Looping cursive letters of shimmering rainbow glitter scrolled across her chest in the simple slogan; _Team Charming._

Regina’s smirk deepened when she saw the worried look that Snow exchanged with Emma and dug into more food stolen from Daniel’s heaped plate. She listened to the conversation rise and fall around her. Listened to…to her family chatter and exchange stories about the time they had spent apart.

Regina didn’t necessarily consider Emma and Snow part of _her_ people but she knew they were part of her entourage at least.

Regina sipped her soda float, enjoying the sugary buzz it gave her, and leaned into Daniel’s side. He shifted, settling his arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her head.

“You know, this is almost normal.” He murmured into her hair.

“Don’t expect it to last.” She warned him.

“I know but, while it does, shall we do something…normal?”

Regina lifted her hand to clasp his on her shoulder. She studied the table, the laughing, the joking, and smiled.

The Evil Queen, Prince Charming, Rapunzel, Snow White, the Saviour, Dragon of the West, a thief, a werewolf and a zombie shape-shifting monster all sitting together having breakfast.

Normal. Right.

“We can certainly try.”

 

**_Later…_ **

 

“Can I open my eyes yet?”

“Not yet.”

Regina huffed out a sigh and walked carefully under Daniel’s instruction. He had his hands over her eyes and he herded her carefully here and there. Aware that doing anything blind was incredibly antagonising to her but she put up with it on his request.

“Okay, now.” Daniel took his hands away from her eyes and Regina cautiously opened them against the bright afternoon light.

She blinked a few times to clear away the purple spots from her vision and gasped when she saw Daniel’s surprise.

“Oh, she’s beautiful!”

Daniel made no move to stop her when Regina approached the dapple grey mare in the corral.

She lifted her head, showing off a Roman profile and turned to watch Regina’s approach with perked ears.

She was quite small, as horses went, but she seemed compact rather than petite. Made of solid muscle and something about her seemed…otherworldly.

She was all long limbs and grace, her mane was a milky white to contrast with the stone grey of her hide, she had a white blaze on her face than ended in a pink snip on her nose and next to no tail to speak of. Just a little docked tuft on her rump.

“Her name is Maggie.” Daniel ambled after Regina, watching her slink through the fence to approach the new mare.

“Hello, Maggie.” Regina murmured to the horse and the mare perked her ears, considered Regina a long moment and then approached.

She dipped her nose into Regina’s outstretched palm and snuffled at her skin, causing Regina to laugh at the velvet feel of it.

“I have no treats for you.”

Maggie snorted and lifted her nose, apparently this was unacceptable. She looked accusingly at Daniel as if it were his fault and turned back to Regina with a sigh.

Regina was treated to a long look before Maggie tossed her head and resigned herself to dealing with inferior puny pinklings.

At least, that was her position until Regina reached up and started to scratch the ridge of Maggie’s brow.

The horse made a rumbling sound almost like a purr and dipped her nose, resting her forehead against Regina’s chest and closing her eyes so as to better enjoy her treat.

“She’s wonderful.” Regina looked up to see Daniel watching her and she grinned at his soft smile. “Did you rent her for the afternoon, I take it?”

“The afternoon?” Daniel shook his head and folded his arms over the top of the fence. “She’s yours.”

Regina blinked at him.

“Daniel…” Regina looked at Maggie, studying the sleek animal and then back to him. “She had to cost a fortune!”

“I haggled.” Daniel shrugged and rested his chin on his forearms, just enjoying the sight of her in her element. Her _real_ element. Not the death and mayhem she seemed to think she belonged in.

“There’s no way that you could afford…”

“It turns out,” Daniel cut her off smoothly, “that my new landlady doesn’t want rent, just gratuitous sexual favours, so I find myself with a cash surplus…and it does me good to see her smile.”

Regina just looked at him for a long moment and then –with a grunt of displeasure from Maggie- abandoned her horse and bounded up onto the fence. She towered over Daniel, balanced on the first rail as she was, and leaned over the top of it to press a searing kiss to his mouth.

“I love you.” She spoke into him when she finally pulled away.

“I know.” Daniel let his nose rub against hers in a display of casual intimacy that made her eyes sparkle with pleasure. “As I love you.”

“You didn’t have to do this.” Regina told him.

“I know that too. I wanted to. I love you, Regina, and I shall do more than just tell you every day, I shall show you.”

Regina’s smile was dazzling.

“I really don’t deserve you.”

“Of course not, nobody does. I’m a paragon, so I am.” He teased her and she grinned again.

 He stepped back when she made to climb over the fence and caught her when she simply tilted over the top of it with the absolute expectation that he would catch her before she fell. He spun her in a circle and stooped so her feet could touch the ground. She wrapped her arms around his neck and smiled for him again.

Smiles like that were worth every dollar in the world.

“Would milady care to test her new steed?”

Regina arched a brow and laughed.

It was not the first time he had said such words to her, though the last time had involved a mad chase on a kelpie and a dunking in a lake…and the most romantic dinner she’d ever been party to.

“Yes,” Regina spoke archly, “she would.”

“Wait here, I’ll get her tack.” Daniel pressed a kiss to her forehead and turned away from her, disappearing into the stable block and the tack room inside.

Regina watched him go, practically bubbling with too many positive emotions to name, and then spun back to the corral. She climbed to the top of the fence to straddle it again and held out her hands.

Maggie, already a brow scratching addict, approached with a soft whickering of greeting and rested her chin on Regina’s knee so that she could be petted once more.

Regina smiled, gladly plying herself to the task and fussed over her present for long moments.

The sun beat down on her back and shoulders, the day was warm, she could feel her magic pouring back into her from every angle and she felt…at peace.

She should have known that it wouldn’t last.

It was a small thing. A niggle really, but it was there.

Regina frowned, rolling her head on her neck as if she had an itch in the middle of her back that she wouldn’t be able to reach herself. She continued to fuss over Maggie but…it was _there._

Regina, never stilling her hands in stroking of the mare’s face, lifted her eyes to scan her surroundings.

The yard stretched away into the road on one side, the corral in front of her with the rolling green pasture dotted with the horses turned out to graze seemed completely benign and even the shade of the treeline beyond the fields seemed to hold nothing more dangerous than the occasional fox or deer that she could sense.

Her magical senses were somewhat shot, in recovery as she was, but she would be able to sense a threat if it were serious enough to actually be a danger to her.

She studied the feeling this way and that, trying to discern what it actually _was_ that she was feeling.

She was…being watched.

Regina straightened a little and her hands finally stilled on Maggie’s face. The mare lifted her head and snorted in displeasure, only subsiding when Regina absently went back to brow scratching.

Regina didn’t look around, not with her eyes, but she stretched every sense she had to the full taut extremity that it was capable of and speared them suddenly out in all directions.

It was a risky move but, if they came across whatever it was that was watching her, she might spook it into revealing itself.

Nothing.

Regina frowned and then she did twist to look around. Searching for where _she_ would lie in wait to observe a sorceress of terrifying power without being seen.

Regina snorted when she couldn’t dumb herself down enough.

She’d scry from the safety of several miles away…or tap into the CCTV of the stables in order to have a good look. There was no way that she would put herself within spell’s reach of someone as powerful as she was.

Then, as quickly as it had been there, the feeling dissipated.

Regina frowned, twisting about to look, but was distracted by Daniel exiting the stables with not one saddle canted on his shoulder, but two.

He grinned at her and Regina smiled in return.

She supposed Hyde powered strength came with its advantages.

Daniel carried two full sized Western saddles on one shoulder, held two bridles in the other and, with a glance over his shoulder and a sharp whistle, summoned his own horse from within the stable block.

Regina’s brows rose when she saw the horse that he had chosen for himself and was both surprised and not.

Silver trotted out of the stables with his smooth floating gait. The big white stallion whinnied a greeting to Regina and hurried to catch up with Daniel. Falling into step with the man to join her at the fence.

 “Your steed, I presume?” Regina studied the new animal and the stallion perked his ears at her with equal interest.

“Regina, you’ve met Silver.” Daniel nodded to his stallion and Silver dutifully pranced a little for her before trotting over to stand beside the corral and peer over the fence at Maggie.

Maggie’s ears pinned back and she opened one eye to glare at Silver, but gave no other response when the big stallion made no move come closer to her nor interrupt the ear strokes that were otherwise occupying Maggie’s time.

“Hello, handsome boy.” Regina smirked and lifted one hand to let Silver snuffle at it, stroking his cheek when he allowed her. She turned her attention to Daniel. “I didn’t expect you to pick a stallion.”

“I’ve spent the last week or so –when I’m not fishing you out of trouble- trying to find a horse that can comfortably carry me for a prolonged time. Silver was the only one that didn’t look like he was going to die after half an hour. He’s as strong as an ox.” Daniel settled both saddles beside one another over the top of the fence and looped the bridles over the horns of their respective saddles. “Being as strong as I am now apparently means I weigh more than I should.”

“It’s your increased density.” Regina nodded. “I would not advise swimming. Ever.”

“I’ve never been much one for water.” Daniel grinned up at her and then waved to the saddles. “Shall we?”

“Yes!” Regina gently pushed Maggie’s face from her lap with a token grumble from the mare and then hopped down into the corral to saddle her horse.

It was mere moments to have the tack in place and Regina wasted no time in slinging herself eagerly up into the saddle.

Maggie stood patiently whilst Regina found her seat and then Regina turned her out into the corral to have a test drive, as it were. She had no doubt that Daniel had chosen well for her, if he knew anything, it was horses, but she wanted to see for herself.

Maggie had an ambling walk and a bouncy trot and even willingly bounded into a rolling canter with the feel of a rocking chair without much coaxing from Regina at all. She found herself laughing for no other reason than she felt like it and drew Maggie to a halt when she found Daniel at the gate of the corral, holding it open for her.

“You look almost perfect.” He smiled up at her, Silver’s reins held lightly in one hand.

“Almost?” Regina arched a brow at him, sidling Maggie closer to the open gate.

“It’s that damn shirt.” Daniel looked down at the horrid pink tee shirt she still wore and shook his head. “I mean, I like Charming as much as the next loyal subject, but there’s a _limit_. Particularly when it involves his name being scrawled over my wife’s chest.”

“Oh,” Regina gripped the hem of her admittedly noxious tee shirt and tugged it away from her body as if to study it more closely, “is that all?”

Without missing a beat, Regina dropped the reins, set both hands to the hem of the tee shirt and then whipped it up and off over her head. Gathering up the reins again, she set her heels to Maggie’s flanks and dropped the tee shirt on Daniel’s head as they sailed past in that jaunty trot.

Daniel tore it from his head, blinking in surprise when she passed him wearing nothing above the waist save a lacy black bra and a smile.

“Isn’t that against the law?” Daniel laughed at her and she spun Maggie in a graceful circle.

“I think I’ll let myself off with a warning.” Regina grinned. There was no one about and she’d wear less to the beach.

“Your bruising is gone.” Daniel noted, nodding to indicate the now unblemished skin around her waist.

 Mal had nearly snapped her in half when she’d swallowed Regina and she had been incredibly lucky that bruising was the only damage she’d suffered.

“Oh yes, I’m feeling a LOT better.” Regina let Maggie dance and prance under her, her mischievousness infectious apparently.

“How much better?” Daniel took a step closer to her and Regina backed Maggie up a few steps.

“You’ll have to catch me to find out.” Regina chuckled at him and spun Maggie on her heels, slapping the reins down onto her neck and letting her have her head.

Maggie squealed and crow hopped forwards a step before simply _taking_ _off._

She was –if at all possible- faster even than Flicka.

It was all Regina could do to fist her hands in Maggie’s mane and keep her seat such a turn of speed the mare had.

She could hear Daniel leaping astride Silver, urging the stallion to give chase, but she could only barely hear it.

It took Regina a second to realise that it wasn’t just the sound of pounding hooves that drowned out his chase, but that of laughter as well.

Regina was laughing.

And it felt glorious.

They tore out of the stable yard, taking to the nearest bridleway and disappearing along it at all speed and neither of the riders noticed the dark figure sequestered in the shadow of the stable block’s eves.

Regina had been interrupted by Daniel before she’d had the chance to look _up._

Hook collapsed his spyglass down into its smallest form and stowed it in his pocket.

So, he had found the Queen and he had found her…happy.

The pirate frowned. That had not been part of the scenarios that had been playing through his mind when he had imagined finding the sorceress again. He had expected to find her alone, grieving still for the loss of her first love. He had not expected her to be wrapped in the embrace of a man who seemed to genuinely love her and she him in return.

Hook couldn’t help but smirk at the playful way the Queen had acted around her lover. The laughing, the joking, whipping her shirt off in broad daylight no less.

Hook smirked for a different reason, Regina certainly hadn’t let the passage of time affect her, that was certain.

His smirk died when he realised what would happen if he took this back to Cora.

The witch had made her plans perfectly clear. She was going to take her daughter back by hook or crook and heaven help anyone that got in her way.

Present pirates included.

Hook tried to shake it off.

What did he care?

Regina was no friend to him. They had been allies in the past, certainly, but that had been the extent of it.

Well, no, that had not been the _full_ extent of it but even pirates didn’t kiss and tell when they knew what was good for them.

No. Hook owed the queen nothing.

Except…

Hook huffed out a breath and tried to shake it off. Except nothing.

So she looked happy, so what? It meant nothing. Her happiness would be destroyed by her mother and that would be none of Hook’s business.

As soon as Cora knew how to destroy her daughter, as soon as Hook helped her, it would be done. Then she would help him. She would deliver him to the Crocodile and he would have his revenge…now why did that suddenly leave a bitter taste in his mouth?

“Well, pirate,” Hook murmured to himself, “it might have something to do with the fact that your world view on villains not getting happy sodding endings has been rocked a bit, eh? She’s the Evil Bloody Queen and she looks about as happy as any woman has a right to be.”

Hook pressed his lips together and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

Thoughts unbidden of Miss Swan rose to the surface of his mind and he shook his head sharply, banishing them with a curse.

This was ridiculous.

She was a comely wench, true, but that was the extent of it.

It had been a while. Being stuck in the company of a dry snake of a woman like Cora would make any man desirous of the first available female that wouldn’t give his cock frostbite.

That was _all_.

Of course, all of that was wonderful thinking for a good pirate to have. Morally corrupt for any other man but, for a pirate, those were acceptable thought processes.

That did not, however, explain what he did next.

Hook spun when he felt the familiar bloom of magic plume at his back and Cora appeared, gripping the brickwork of the chimney to stay upright on the slanted roof.

“Pirate.” Cora looked down at him. “Did you find her?”

Hook looked at her for a long moment and then hauled himself to his feet. He dusted off his coat and measured his words.

“Hook, did you find my daughter?” Cora’s words were clipped and cold.

Frigid.

Her eyes were dead when Hook lifted his head and met them with his own. He suddenly felt…old.

Old and tired and in need of something other than revenge to keep him warm at night.

He looked at Cora and saw what he was to become if he kept on this path.

A destroyer.

Maybe it was that. Maybe it was that he _was_ old and he _was_ tired. Maybe it was the shadow of a once decent naval officer. Maybe it was even that there is common decency in even pirates. Maybe it was that not even Evil Queens deserved someone like Cora in their lives in a sunny afternoon such as this.

“No.” Hook shook his head. “I haven’t seen her.”

 

**_Later…_ **

 

“Are you alright?” Daniel herded a feet dragging Regina into her house and closed the door behind them.

“I’m fine. Just tired.” She turned to smile up at him to show she truly meant it. “Still recharging.”

It had been a long afternoon of riding and chasing one another about the woods and bridleways of Storybrooke. They were both of them a little sore, grubby and starving again but in good spirits. It had been a good afternoon of just being…normal.

“You, my love,” Daniel chuckled, “need a nap.”

“Oh, that sounds _wonderful_.” Regina laughed and turned, lifting her arms and looping them about his neck. “Care to join me?”

“You cannot possibly be energetic enough for what shall follow should I take you to bed.” Daniel let his hands slide around her waist. He had donated his shirt to her since she had discarded hers so she was almost drowning in the _Team Reggie_ shirt he had been wearing and he wore nothing beneath his leather jacket.

A look she apparently approved of.

“Challenge accepted.” She smirked up at him, her fingers taking the tab of his jacket’s zipper and beginning to rasp it downward, the green light of his scar eking through.

“No.” He took her wrists in his hands and lifted them to his mouth so he could press kisses to her fingers.

“No?” She arched a brow at him though she was smirking.

“It would be damaging to my ego for you to fall asleep halfway through.”

“ _Never_ happen.” She assured him.

“I just don’t want you overdoing it. At least eat something now, hmm?” Daniel bargained with her and she twisted her mouth a little before relenting with a nod.

She recognised that he was worried for her. He was still a civilian when it came to the vast majority of magical workings, both within and without her body, so she could see why it might be difficult for him to comprehend how expending energy physically could have a magical payoff that would greatly improve how she felt in a short time.

Physical exhaustion could be treated with sleep, as she had done last night, magical exhaustion…well, she had ever preferred sex to recharge that particular lack of energy in herself.

Now that she loved the man she could –ahem- recharge with, it was all the headier for it.

“Very well. Do you want to order in?”

“I can cook you something.” Daniel steered her towards the living room and one of the broad couches. The one that she’d had to magically repair in a hurry the day of the party.

“You? Cook? Can you work the stove?”

“I have to learn sometime.” Daniel shrugged and Regina made to head for the kitchen.

“I can…”

“No.” He told her firmly and pushed her gently down to sit on the couch. “Let me do this for you. If you insist on all the daring do, you can at least let me feed you afterwards.”

“I’m not the one that punched a dragon.” Regina muttered and he effortlessly tipped her over so she flopped down onto her side on the couch with a squeak.

“No, you’re the one whose bright idea it was to get eaten by one.” Daniel tugged off her boots one after the other and then leaned down over her so they were nose to nose and she was smiling again.

“Not for long.” She hunched her shoulders in a shrug and he shook his head and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.

“Now, be still, rest. I’ll bring you food.”

“I’d forgotten how good it was to have servants.” Regina stretched her arms up over her head, posing for him, knowing how he liked the way she looked like this and was disappointed when he did  little more than give an appreciative look from her head to her toes and then dragged the throw from the back of the couch down over her.

Regina chuckled and made a show of snuggling into the thick angora blanket.

“I’d be warmer if you were in here with me.”

“Of this there is no doubt.” Daniel smirked at her and then turned and walked away.

Regina twisted to appreciate the sight of him leaving (she did like him in jeans…almost as much as she liked him out of them) and then tugged the throw closer about herself still.

A cavernous yawn caught her by surprise and she cushioned her head on one arm and must have dozed because, when she opened her eyes, it was not the person she had expected standing over her.

“Comfy?” Henry grinned down at her.

“Yes.” Regina spoke from behind the cover. She had drawn it right up so only her eyes and the top of her head was visible. She considered him a long moment and then lifted one arm, the blanket thrown back. “Cuddle me.”

Henry shook his head as if it was a great trial, but he crawled onto the couch and under the comforter with her. Regina tucked him close, his arm looped over her waist and rested her chin on top of his head.

“You feeling okay?”

“I was gonna ask you that.” Henry chuckled but nodded against her shoulder. “I’m a little tired and a lot hungry but I feel pretty good. You?”

“The same.” Regina murmured and let her eyes close again. Her thoughts were fuzzy but she joined the dots together eventually. “Emma’s here?”

“Yeah, she and Daniel are trying to cook. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.” Henry yawned and Regina chuckled. “He’s making…broth, he says. Whatever that is.”

“It’s a soup. A commoner’s dish from back home.” Regina yawned herself.

“Is Daniel a commoner?”

“There has never been a single common thing about that man in his life.” Regina smiled as she spoke and Henry answered it with one of his own when he could hear it in her voice.

“I’m happy you’re happy.” Henry told her.

“I’m happy I’m happy too.” Regina smirked.

“You’re really okay with Emma staying here?”

Regina grunted noncommittally and he elbowed her in the ribs.

“Mo-om!”

“It’s fine!” Regina defended herself with a laugh. “Really. I don’t mind. Much. Okay, a little, but she seems so…non-threatening now. I don’t feel like she can steal you away from me anymore.”

“Good.” Henry cushioned his head on her shoulder. “She wasn’t gonna, you know, she tried once. To just drive away and take me from Storybrooke _but_ ,” he spoke quickly when Regina stiffened, “I told her she couldn’t. We couldn’t abandon everyone and now I kinda think…I think it was really because I didn’t want to abandon you. You’d have been all alone without me.”

“Yes.” Regina’s arms tightened around him and she looked up at the ceiling. “Yes, I would have.”

“Never happen.” He hugged her tightly, wriggling both arms around her. “You showed me the real you and you didn’t freak out a _lot_ when Ruby tried to show you how much family you have and no one can take that away from us. Nobody can take our family apart. It’s too strong. You’re too strong to let it happen.”

“Oh, so it’s all my responsibility now?”

“Yup.” Henry answered without hesitation. “We’re a mess. Without you to organise us we fall apart. I mean, you went under the sleeping curse and everybody just _freaked_. You’d have been totally cool and calm about it but the rest of us just went nuts.”

“Well…I did kind of spring it on you.”

“Yeah. Don’t do that again.”

“Soooo…I’ve to protect you all, organise you all, keep you safe and…not put myself in danger doing it?” Regina smirked at the ceiling, a little mystified about the entire conversation.

“Yes please.” Henry nodded against her and she laughed at him.

“Well, that won’t be difficult.” Regina rolled her eyes and cuddled her son closer. She kissed his forehead. “I’ll try for you.”

“Good.” Henry snuggled against her and let loose a slow sigh.

“Go to sleep now, sweetheart. You’re tired.”

“M’not.” Henry mumbled against her neck.

“Uh-huh.” Regina humoured him, rubbing his back. “Sleep now, there are no nightmares left to get you. If any try, I’ll chase them away.”

Henry let loose another slow sigh and the tension bled from his shoulders a little. Only his mom would have known to tell him that. He felt himself relax in the warm space beneath the blanket, leaning against his mom, and slowly slipped into sleep.

Regina, resting her chin on top of his head and drawing the blanket closer about them both, followed him into dreams.

Dreams and only dreams. For there were no nightmares brave enough to risk her wrath should they interrupt her son’s rest.  

        

   


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40 – New World Order**

 

“So…”

Emma leaned against the countertop in the kitchen and raised her eyebrows, struggling for conversation.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t think of anything. The problem was that she could think of about ten _million_ things to talk about when it came to this stranger in Regina’s kitchen.

Her apparent true love.

That had been dead for forty years.

Then brought back by a mad scientist.

…with a monster that had been made by a _different_ mad scientist living in his chest.

Oy vey.

“So?” Daniel sipped at the soup he was making and examined the mix of miscellaneous…stuff that was in the other pot.

“You were dead?”

“For a while.” Daniel nodded and stirred at the pot that appeared to be filled with some kind of liquid dough. “I got better.”

“Right.” Emma nodded and drummed her fingers against the marble top of the kitchen surfaces. “Do you…remember anything?”

Daniel stilled and frowned. He looked over at her.

“I’m sorry. That must be real personal, I didn’t mean…”

“No, it’s fine.” Daniel straightened away from leaning against the hob and rummaged in the cutlery drawer until he found the spoons. “It’s just that you’re the first person to have asked me that.”

“Really?!” Emma’s brows rose. “That is, like, the most obvious question!”

Daniel chuckled.

“Well, not really.”

“It totally is.” Emma pulled out a stool and hopped up onto it.

“Different worlds.” Daniel shrugged and rattled the two spoons he had picked out of the drawer against one another. “There’s no real _science_ over in the Enchanted Forest. It’s all magic and the afterlife over there is something of a confirmed entity. Nobody questions it. Why do you think so many soldiers viewed going off to die in battle as a Saturday night’s entertainment?”

“Oh.” Emma frowned a moment. “So…do you remember anything?”

“Pain. To begin with. Anger, terror at leaving Regina.” Daniel scooped a spoonful of the dough stuff out of the pot and then used the other spoon to ball it a little and dropped it into the soup. “But all of that passed in an instant. It took very little time to crush my heart. No time at all really.”

Daniel continued to spoon and scrape the contents of one pot into the other. He seemed absorbed in the task and Emma was in no hurry to draw him from it. Not when she was so genuinely curious as to what he had to say.

“Then…quiet and a slow kind of fall. Like the entire world spun around me topsy-turvy. I felt as if I was sinking into the dark, like water closing over my head and sucking me down into the depths of a pool with no bottom. I could feel the world turn. The stars of a thousand skies whirled and wheeled around me and I was bathed in their light but I could not feel it and I could not move. I was conscious, in a way, of the passage of time. Years went by…but I did not feel them in my heart. Possibly because I no longer had one. That part of my soul had been ripped free and crushed. After a time, I began to realise that I was not to move on. I was…stuck.”

Emma swallowed hard, that sounded terrifying.

“I wasn’t scared.” Daniel glanced at her, seeming to know where her thoughts were headed. “It became warm and I could feel a heartbeat around me. This great and thunderous heartbeat. A flash of light, such massive power that roiled. I was in a storm or the storm was in me and then…agony. Madness. Rage.”

Daniel finished emptying the dough into the soup and carefully stirred the mixture, setting it to simmering. He picked up the empty pot and put it in the sink to soak.

“That was me coming back. The storm was Doctor Whale reviving me with the lightning.” Daniel waved up at the light fittings overhead. “The pain was my body trying to reject my new heart. The madness and rage belonged to Hyde and –in no small part- was left over from my feelings towards Cora.” Daniel propped himself against the work surface, folding his brawny arms over his chest.

“Was it…how are you okay?”

“Regina. Of course.” Daniel smirked and rolled her eyes. “Idiotic little female decided she’d take the curse Whale had brought down on me by bringing me back. She gave me her health and took on my pain. It very nearly killed her.”

Emma’s brows rose.

“She did…that?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Daniel tilted his head at her.

“I…I guess I don’t know her like you do.” Emma said carefully.

“No. I imagine you don’t.” Daniel looked irritated for a moment and then shrugged it off. “But that is not your fault.”

“But you think it’s my mother’s fault.” The words were out of her before she could stop it and Emma regretted it when Daniel stiffened a fraction.

“No.” Daniel’s mouth twisted. “Yes.”

“Thanks for clearing that up.”

“You wish to know if I am a threat to Snow and I am not. Not unless she attempts to harm Regina for that _girl_ brought about my death and I will hesitate not at all to become angry about that if I am provoked.” Daniel let loose a pent up breath and steadied himself. “That being said; _Cora_ was my murderer. She plunged her hand into my chest and she ripped my heart free. She crushed it before my eyes and made the love of my life watch. She didn’t just tear into my soul, she shattered Regina’s and there is not enough time past or present for me to forgive her for such heinous action. If I had my way…well, if wishes were horses. She is not here.”

Daniel turned away and stirred the soup again.

“Hey, been on the wrong end of that bitch myself though…it ended better for me than it did you.” Emma shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t, I mean, I know that just because you’re back that doesn’t change what happened to Regina because of it. It doesn’t make the pain and all the other stuff she felt because she lost you disappear I just…Snow was a little kid, you know?”

“You cannot take the punishment for her actions. I know all about the sins of the father falling to the son –or daughter in this case- and I will not do it.”

“But…you do wanna punish her.”

Daniel heaved out a sigh, his eyes flickered an odd green colour, just for a moment, but it made Emma sit up and take notice.

“Yes. Yes I do want.” Daniel tilted his head and then smiled a little. “Though there is wanting and there is doing. Revisiting Cora’s actions on your mother –a fitting justice I would think- would involve removing Charming’s heart and Regina is, unfortunately, quite attached to the prince.”

“Really?” Emma scrunched her nose up.

“Oh yes, _really_.” Daniel rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Her partner in crime both domestic and abroad. They enjoy getting one another into trouble. I think mainly so they can pull one another out again afterwards…and so Regina can wear that uniform and drive the strange car.”

“The squad car?”

“As you say.” Daniel nodded.

“I missed a lot.” Emma frowned a little and then forced herself to brighten. “But, you know, the place is still standing so it can’t have been that bad.”

Daniel’s mouth curled up in a smirk.

“Not entirely so, no.”

“And…Henry seems to like you.”

“It’s not entirely one sided. When he’s not being a brat.”

Emma smirked wryly.

“He can be pretty headstrong. I wonder who he got that from.”

“His poorer intelligence I attribute to more genetic elements.”

“He’s not stupid.” Emma frowned at him.

“He acted so. To Regina. He was cruel to her.”

“To be fair…”

“No one has ever been fair to Regina. I don’t see why I should not be biased –for once- in _her_ favour. Since nobody else has ever bothered themselves to.” Daniel smirked, unrepentant and Emma huffed out a breath.

“Okay, I get that.” She hunched her shoulders. “I get that you could see it that way.”

“I see it that way because it is that way.”

“It _was_ that way!” Emma snapped and waved at the doorway to the living room where Henry had disappeared off to. “He’s completely different from the kid I left last month. He’s…he’s doing magic and he’s _wrestling_ and fencing and riding horses and…”

“And happy and her son.” Daniel cut her off. “Exactly as it was before you arrived.”

Emma’s jaw clenched.

“Scary, isn’t it?”

Emma was quiet for a long moment.

“Yeah.” She looked away from him. “It is.”

“She’s not trying to take him away from you. She doesn’t have to. He is the son of both of you and perfectly content to be so. So _don’t_ try anything.”

“I’m not the one who’s a mass murdering- -!”

“One more word and I shall become upset.” Daniel’s eyes flashed green and they stayed that way.

“Is that him?” Emma slowly stood, reaching behind her back.

“Did you come into my house armed?”

“Is that him?!” Emma’s jaw clenched, her heart pounding and her chest heaving.

“You probably shouldn’t be afraid. He likes the smell.” Daniel pushed off the counter and prowled towards her. “Now, answer my question, did you bring a _weapon_ into my _home_ where my _wife_ sleeps at night?”

Emma tried to control herself but the eyes that looked at her…they weren’t human. They weren’t anywhere near human. They weren’t even animal. Animals were just raw instinct. These…these were cruel. Those were the eyes of a monster that was going to _enjoy_ whatever it did to her.

Slowly, very slowly, Emma withdrew what she was holding and held it out to him, palm up.

Daniel reached out just as slowly, the light glimmering from his steel coloured nails, and picked up her cell phone. He arched a brow at her and his eyes slowly dimmed, becoming midnight blue once more.

“What were you going to do? Text message me until I begged for mercy?”

“I was…going to take a photograph of you. To prove you were dangerous.”

Daniel surged, suddenly nose to nose with her. She staggered back an alarmed step and sucked in a breath when something _clunked_ when she hit the counter top behind her.

“Hmm, now that IS interesting. In my experience,” Daniel’s hand fisted in her shirt and pulled her away from the worktop, his hand slipping behind her and removing the gun from the belt of her jeans, “women tend not to clunk when I pin them to something.”

Daniel lifted the gun and snorted a laugh.

“One of these. David likes to wave them around. A gun. A poor weapon when going up against a tempest and her undead lover. Just so as you are aware,” Daniel began to toy with the gun, dismantling it piece by piece, Hyde had seen the like before, it was child’s play, “at worst, these would scratch me. Regina would catch them or –if you are terribly unlucky- deflect them on instinct. She has done as much before. You endanger no one but the things you love most if you fire this gun; your son…and yourself.”

Emma swallowed hard and Daniel nodded, laying the pieces of the gun out on the work surface in neat parallel lines.

“It’s understandable. To you, she is a psychopathic war criminal, but she is also the woman I love and the mother that your son loves dearly. I saw Henry fight for her. Just as fiercely as I. Regina will _never_ hurt him.”

“She put him under a sleeping curse and he _died_!” Emma hissed at him.

“And you fulfilled your destiny and you saved him and you saved the town from her and now…nobody needs saving. How odd, to suddenly be without a purpose. To suddenly be…unneeded.”

“Henry needs me.”

“No.” Daniel shook his head and smirked. “He doesn’t. He _wants_ you. There’s a difference. Luckily for you, he has never needed _you_ , that would make the whole abandoning him when he was born and only taking him back when he was easy to look after thing a bit embarrassing, wouldn’t it?”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you saying these things?” Emma found herself on the verge of tears and she blinked frantically. She would not. Cry.

“Because somebody has to. You have spent your entire life running from consequence and now you have been forced to stop. Because Henry is here. Because you think you are prepared to deal with the rigours of parenthood. Because you think you know Henry.”

“And you do? Zombie guy that’s been back for all of five minutes?”

“I know that I Regina loves him. I know that she hurts when he hurts and if you hurt. Him. I will make you pay.”

“Are you…? This is for Henry? You’re…you think I’m going to hurt him?”

“You’re a runner and a coward and now you think that Henry doesn’t need you, you have no need to stay here. As soon as it gets hard, as soon as it gets difficult, you’re going to rabbit. Because that’s what people like you do.”

“And what are people like me?” Emma gritted from behind clenched teeth.

“A burden.”

Emma flinched and let out a seething breath. She looked down and shook her head suddenly.

“You’re wrong. I’ve changed.”

“Really? I’m supposed to believe that?”

“It’s the truth!”

“People change? Try again.”

“I did!”

“Then why can’t Regina?”

Emma opened her mouth and stalled. She licked her lips nervously and blinked several times. She let out a slow breath and looked away from him, pressing her lips together.

“That’s what this was all about. This entire conversation. That if I changed, so can she.”

“No.” Daniel shook his head and looked briefly at the ceiling as if searching for patience. “Gods, you really do think everything is about you.”

“I…”

“Shut up.” Daniel told her flatly. “The point of this entire conversation was for me to take your measure and to point out to you that if _Regina_ can change then there may yet be hope for _you._ ”

Emma gaped at him for a moment and then she began to get angry.

“Where do you get off…?!”

“Miss Swan, you are not the type to ‘get me off’ in any way, shape, or form.” Daniel resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. “And parts of me have walked worlds for longer than anyone in this town bar the Blue Faerie and the Dark One and I have seen great men and women and…you are not one of them. I have seen the worst, the dregs of humanity…and neither are you one of them. You are…nothing.”

“I am not…”

“Shut. UP.” Daniel shook his head, frowning a little, was it really that hard to understand? “This isn’t a judgement, this is fact. Change your ways, Miss Swan, become worthy your son. If you can.”

“I…” Emma hesitated and Daniel turned away from her, waving over his shoulder.

“Go on. You may speak now.”

Emma scowled at the back of his head and slapped her hands against her hips.

She had no idea what to say to any of that.

“That smells good.”

Regina padded into the kitchen, steering a tousled Henry in front of her.

“Is it done yet? We’re hungry.” Regina meandered over to the hob and boosted herself up to sit on the counter top so she could see into the large pot.

“Hey, Emma.” Henry smiled up at her and leaned casually into her side.

“Hey…kid.” Emma managed something of a smile and cautiously looped her arm over his shoulders.

“You put on a shirt.” Regina plucked at the red tee shirt that Daniel filled out nicely. She did not sound pleased at the development.

“We had company. I have been told that it is very _Ironman_.” Daniel waved to the glowing seam of his scar that glowed softly through the red material. “I have no idea what that means.”

“It is high praise indeed.” Regina assured him.

“He’s really much more like the Incredible Hulk.” Henry rubbed at his eyes. It had been a short nap but he did feel much better. Like sleeping next to his mom had been like putting him on a charging plate. “And mom is the Sorceress Supreme.”

“Ooh, I like that.” Regina gave a dazzling smile, considerably perked up herself.

 “What about Miss Swan? Which hero is she?” Daniel asked Henry with a sly smile at Emma.

“Hmmm…” Henry looked up at Emma and his mouth twisted as he mulled it over. “I dunno yet. I don’t know any heroes that fight dragons.”

“Well, Emma is a real live Saviour. So that has to count for something.” Regina rolled her eyes and looked around the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Fire I can handle. The mechanics of that infernal engine of narcotics is entirely beyond me.”

“Neanderthal.” Regina hopped down off the counter and ambled to the coffee machine.

“I don’t know what that is.” Daniel shrugged his shoulders and pondered the soup.

“A caveman.” Henry bounded over and went up on his toes, trying to see in the pot.

Daniel glanced down at him and then lifted his foot off the floor so his shin was parallel to the floor.

Henry grinned, putting his foot up onto Daniel’s calf and using it as a step to boost himself up onto the counter. He peered into the pot and smiled again when Daniel blew on a spoonful of soup and offered it to him. Henry leaned forward to allow himself be fed and hummed in approval at the taste of whatever Daniel had made.

“What is that?”

“It’s ham broth with dumplings.”

“Tastes good.”

“It’s the only meal I can make other than chicken and crisps.” Daniel confided in Henry.

“Chicken and crisps?” Emma risked joining the conversation.

“Do not _mock_ the Chicken and Crisps.”

Henry and Daniel turned to her, speaking in unison, with exactly the same inflection.

“Is this a gun?”

Emma whirled when Regina spoke from behind her.

“It is a gun.” Regina picked up the barrel and then the firing pin, the coffee machine gurgling beside her. She frowned and turned the pieces over, studying them.

“I…”

Regina picked up the housing for the barrel and slotted one into the other with a soft click.

“Oooh.” Regina hopped up onto the stool and picked up another piece of the gun. She studied it end to end and then slotted it together onto the end of the barrel.

“What are you doing?” Emma’s gut clenched.

“Putting it together.” Regina hummed and snapped the stock into place.

“ _Why?_ ”

“I’m curious.” Regina lifted the clip and it was all Emma’s nerves could stand.

She darted forward and plucked it from her fingers. She stuffed it into her pocket and huffed out a breath.

Regina arched a brow at her, holding the gun in one hand, her index finger resting on the trigger guard. Her other hand turned over and she held up a small rod of metal.

“I hadn’t put the firing pin in. I wouldn’t have a fire ready gun in my house. I have a child. Not to mention that you would need something a lot more powerful than –what- a nine millimetre to take down someone as strong as myself or Daniel.” Regina frowned a little at her. “Are you well, Miss Swan?”

Emma swallowed hard and bumped her fist against her thigh.

“I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

Regina frowned at her and nodded.

“Your magic is much depleted. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long. My advice is to eat, shower and then sleep for about…a day.”

“I think I’ll skip dinner.”

“No.” Regina cut her off firmly. “You need to eat, shower and sleep. For a day.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Emma frowned at her.

“I most _certainly_ showered yesterday, I can assure you.” Regina dismantled the gun as she spoke. “Not to mention eating my own bodyweight within the last twenty four hours and if _I_ need to do that then you shall have to do that and more. You are less than half my age, Miss Swan, and you have come into a power that you can barely comprehend. It’s going to knock you on your ass and it is really much kinder to yourself to already be horizontal when that happens.”

Henry gasped and they both turned to look at him.

“The Force is strong in you! You’re Luke Skywalker!”

Emma frowned.

 Regina blinked and then she burst out laughing.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Let’s all laugh at the jedi. When do I lose my hand?”

“Does that make me Darth Mutter?” Regina frowned and accepted a mug from Daniel to pour herself some gravy thick coffee. Good grief, she could resurface roads with this stuff.

It was going to be a good cup of Jo.

“More like Darth Gran-step-Mutter.” Henry mulled it over and kicked his legs against the kitchen counters.

“Less of the gran.” Regina narrowed her eyes at him over the coffee cup but he could see her smile anyway.

“Soup’s on.” Daniel appeared with steaming bowls of soup and clattered them onto the worktop.

He scooped Henry up off the counter by the hob and dropped him giggling into the nearest stool. He set another two bowls down and took his own stool, passing spoons out to everyone.

“Emma, this one is yours.” Henry pointed to the last bowl and nudged the stool out towards her.

“I, uh, I’m good. Thanks. I think I’ll eat it in the shower.”

“You’re gonna eat in the shower?” He looked from Emma to Regina. “You can do that?”

“No. _You_ can’t.” Regina sipped from her spoon.

“It’s a skill. You wanna keep your food away from the bigger kids, you eat in the only room with the lock on the door.” Emma ruffled Henry’s hair and leaned over to kiss his forehead. “I’ll see you later.”

Henry opened his mouth to protest but Emma had already scooped up her bowl and spoon and left the kitchen.

Daniel watched her go, eating his soup and dumplings. He savoured a sliver of ham that was so soft it broke apart on his tongue and then noticed he was under the weight of two identical heavy looks.

“What?”

“What’d you do?” Henry demanded. “She was fine before I went to see mom and now she’s all…weird.”

“How am I supposed to know?” Daniel hunched his shoulders innocently. “Today is the first time I have spoken to her.”

“Daniel,” Regina tilted her head and arched a brow at him, “did you get a little overprotective?”

“I became exactly the right amount of protective as I always am. I did nothing wrong.”

“That wasn’t what I asked you.”

“And yet, it is the answer I gave.”

Regina gave a low growl and he just smirked at her.

“Her world has changed. Best she realises how much as soon as possible.” Daniel continued to eat his soup blithely uncaring at the glares he received from both his companions.

“Did you say mean stuff to her?” Henry’s frown deepened.

“She thought so.” Daniel shrugged.

“Why would you do that?!”

Regina placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder and pushed him gently back down onto his seat.

“Because she’s never had anyone tell her what she has done wrong nor pointed out to her that her status as the vaunted Saviour does not canonise her directly into sainthood.” Daniel ate a dumpling and hummed, not enough black pepper. “Her idiocy could trigger a popularity contest that I know your mother will not win because everyone here is a moron. If Emma gives into her fear she will try and force you to choose between her and the woman who gave you everything. This will hurt you. I will not allow it.”

Henry blinked, spoon hanging from his mouth and then looked over at Regina before his eyes darted back to Daniel.

“You yelled at her…for me?”

“I did not yell.” Daniel spoke firmly. “I spoke with conviction. There is a difference.”

“Yes, yelling would have woken us and put a stop to it.” Regina drawled but she was smiling with her eyes.

“I didn’t realise…you liked me that much.” Henry said slowly and Daniel turned his attention back to the boy.

“Why would I not? You are the son of my soulmate. We are family. I will fight to the end for you, Henry.” Daniel spoke lightly but Henry was beginning to realise what a big word like ‘conviction’ meant.

Henry looked down at his soup and his mouth twisted.

He made a soft sound of surprise when Daniel’s hand came down on top of his head. He didn’t tousle his hair or smooth it down or do any of that. He just rested his hand there for a moment and then lifted it away.

Henry looked up to see Daniel brush his knuckles down the side of Regina’s face and then return to eating his soup.

Henry, slowly, smiled.

 

**_The Guesthouse…_ **

 

“Here we are.” Ruby swung through the front door of the guesthouse, struggling with as many bags as she had and Maleficent prowled in after her.

“I really can carry things.” The dragon assured the little wolf. “If you would…”

“Nonsense.” Ruby waved it off with her elbow, which was the only appendage free to do so. “You’re a guest, I can’t let you…”

“I am the Dragon of the West,” Maleficent leaned over and took half of the bags in one hand with an even easier strength than even Ruby possessed, “nobody ‘lets’ me do anything.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I am ‘letting’ you stay here, ye great walking luggage set. The girl’s request that I be nice to ye has a limit of goodwill on it.” Granny appeared up on the landing and glared down at Maleficent.

“Widow Wolf,” Maleficent greeted her coolly, “always a pleasure.”

“Hrrn. Put her in the back room.” Granny spoke to Ruby and then disappeared off to finish getting ready for the nightshift. She was pulling a split so Ruby could stay with their ‘guest’.

“Did she…did she just refer to Regina, Evil Queen, Scourge of the Enchanted Forest and Captain of the Blackguard as ‘the girl’?”

Ruby blinked at her and her mouth twisted.

“I really just call her Reggie.” Ruby hunched her shoulders. “We’re trying to get her to put the whole evil queening and scourging behind her…or at least, y’know, save it for weekends and bank holiday Mondays.”

Maleficent frowned at her. She had only understood about half of that. A feeling she was fast becoming familiar with and liking even less. She let out a slow breath through her nose that plumed green magic and Ruby watched it with a small smile.

“That’s kind of cool.”

“It’s actually very hot. I would probably burn you if you were to touch me.”

Ruby reached out and placed her fingers directly on Mal’s nose. The dragon hopped back a step with a startled hiss.

“What did I just say?!”

“See? Nothing.” Ruby held up her hand to show it was fine. “I’m not made of tinder and it’s just an expression. I mean it’s interesting and…delightful that you just kind of…throw off magic every which way.”

“Interesting and delightful.” Mal rolled the words around her mouth and tilted her head, her blonde hair cascading in waves down over her shoulder. She prowled forward, circling Ruby and looking the young woman up and down from every angle. “In that case, I find you ‘cool’ too, little wolf.”

“Uh, I, uh, thanks.” Ruby told herself there was no reason to blush because it was just a compliment and…and it was all the magic coming from Mal that made her feel so warm.

“So…the back room. This sounds ominous. Is it the dungeon?” Mal circled Ruby again, letting her shoulder brush against Ruby’s.

“It’s…snug.” Ruby allowed.

“A word I have always admired.” Mal smirked, showing off sharp white teeth.

“I…uh, you don’t have to stay in it if you don’t want to. You can pick. Despite what Granny says, she will actually treat you right because Reggie asked it.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“Uh…”

“It was not a trick question.”

“Upstairs.” Ruby blurted out before she could stammer again. “Granny and I live upstairs. Guests stay downstairs.”

“She wants me in the furthest room from yours.” Maleficent looked up at the landing above them as if she could still see Granny. Hell, maybe she could. “Interesting.”

“She just doesn’t like change.”

“According to you, there has been nothing but change these past weeks.”

“Exactly. She hit her quota.” Ruby hunched her shoulders and Maleficent hummed in the back of her throat.

Her lips twitched and her glowing eyes smiled.

“Put me in the snug room. I shall abide by the old wolf’s wishes.”

“You don’t have to…”

“It is her den. I will coil myself in the space made for me.” Mal smiled and bowed her head a little. “You heard her, Gina can only buy so much goodwill for me.”

“Well, let’s dump your stuff in the room and then we can do something fun.” Ruby forced herself to brighten.

“And what constitutes ‘fun’ in your little hamlet?”

“It’s not a hamlet, it’s a town.” Ruby stepped around her and led her towards the back room.

“I have swum in the pools of Atlantis, basked in the hanging gardens of Babylon, feasted on roast minotaur in Minos’ labyrinth and stooped from the shoulder of the Colossus of Rhodes. Tell me, what does this ‘town’ have that could compare to the wonders of all ancient worlds?”

Ruby pushed into the smallest room in the guesthouse, dumped Mal’s shopping on the tiny bed and spun back to her. She held up a finger to prevent Mal from saying anything else and gathered her words.

“First off,” Ruby spoke in a voice that all but quivered in excitement, “you are going to tell me all about those cities and what they were like and just…everything.”

Mal tilted her head and smirked.

“Second of all, we have marshmallows, peanut butter M&M’s and blu-ray.”

Mal slowly blinked at her.

“I have no idea what those are.”

Ruby grinned.

“Better than roast minotaur, I can tell you that much.” Ruby took the bags from Mal’s hands and dumped them on the bed beside the rest of it. She took Mal’s hand and dragged her out of the room again.

“Where are we going?!” Mal stared down at her hand, mystified as to why she hadn’t hauled it out of the little wolf’s grip for daring to touch her uninvited.

“To my secret stash and my flatscreen TV.” Ruby hauled Mal along the corridor and up the stairs to the floor where she and Granny lived.

“Secret stash?” Mal was really beginning to hate how she understood almost none of the conversations that went on around her.

She had heard some of the spawn of the puny pinklings talking earlier and it might as well have been wrestling pigs’ squealing for all the knowledge it had imparted on her.

“My hoard.” Ruby dragged her into the living room and thrust her down onto the couch.

Mal bounced on the cushions and was a little alarmed when she appeared to sink into them like some woollen throw covered bog. She squirmed and very nearly squeaked in alarm when she found she couldn’t get out. She stopped only when she realised that there was a limit as to how far down she was going to sink.

“Your hoard?” Mal managed in a normal tone. “Ah, this I understand.”

“Yeah, we’re going to eat junkfood until we wanna throw up and watch movies until our eyes turn square.”

“And…this is entertainment in this drab little world?”

“It’s _my_ entertainment in my fifty six inch, hi-def, surround sound world. We’re gonna have a movie marathon.”

Mal let out a clouding breath through her nose again when that made exactly no sense to her.

“You’ll like it. Even Reggie likes it, though she dissed the Wolfman and that’s just not cool.”

“Who is the Wolfman?”

“Not important.” Ruby crouched down in front of a shelf of what appeared to be very slim and uniform books with blue bindings. “Tonight’s theme is DRAGONS!”

“Ah, this I may know something about.”

“I hope so. I like to know all the places where the movie makers get it wrong and then we throw popcorn at the TV and Granny comes in and yells at us for making a mess.”

“And this is…entertaining? In the High Deaf with the fifty six inches?”

Ruby stilled and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

“Yeah, sure, why not?”

Mal frowned a little, a quite frankly adorable pout pulling at her full mouth, and watched Ruby trail her fingers over the spines of the strange blue books. She had nice hands, the little wolf. Delicate wrists and slim fingers. Her nails were black. Just like Mal’s.

“Leeet’s waaaaaaaaaatch… _Dragonheart_!” Ruby pulled that book out and then changed her mind. “Ugh, no, sad ending. Uhm, _Sleeping Beauty_ , nah, bad memories I suppose. How aboooouuut…ooh! _How to Train Your Dragon!”_

“We cannot be trained.” Mal’s voice was flat.

“And there’s the first mistake!” Ruby pointed at her like she had done something grand and Mal could only frown. “I’ll get some popcorn for you to throw later.”

Ruby did something in front of the large black mirror that hung bolted to the wall above the fireplace and opened the blue book to pull out a small disc that appeared to be made of some kind of iridescent metal.

Mal’s eyes glittered at the shiny thing and she attempted to sit up straighter with her interest before the couch had another go at eating her and she sank further into it. She growled, distracted, and then the shiny thing was gone and the mirror had flickered into life.

“You’re gonna love this!” Ruby bounded over to the couch and hurled herself onto it from three feet away.

She nearly landed on top of Mal and bounced her clean off the couch but she caught her before she could go anywhere and tucked herself up beside the dragon, holding her arm excitedly.

Mal frowned at the little wolf. She doubted very much that she was going to love anything so long as the furniture was trying to eat her but she watched with interest as Ruby held a black boxy baton and pointed it at the mirror.

“What is…this?”

“A movie.”

Mal just blinked at Ruby.

“Uh…they’re stories. You record them on discs and then we can play the discs in a machine and it puts them onto the screen for us to watch and listen to. It’s fun.”

Mal frowned.

“It is. This movie is _really_ good. It’s about a war between dragon’s and Vikings.”

“Short war.” Mal drawled and Ruby just beamed at her.

“You’ll like it. I promise but even if you don’t, I have tonnes more movies about dragons.” Ruby hit ‘play’ on the menu and the _Dreamworks_ logo played over the screen.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you have so many moo-vees about my kin?”

“I dunno,” Ruby shrugged, “I’ve got loads about werewolves too but even more on dragons. Now that I remember everything I remember always being fascinated by dragons. When I was little it was because they could fly. I was so jealous of that freedom. Granny could be pretty controlling back then.”

“Only back then?” Mal asked innocently and Ruby narrowed her eyes at her. Not fooled.

“Later on, when I got control of being a wolf,” she continued, “I guess…I dunno, I think it was because everybody thought they were monsters. I mean, people thought _I_ was a monster and I wasn’t so maybe that meant there were dragons that weren’t monsters too.”

Mal tilted her head.

“I am a monster.”

“You are totally not!” Ruby’s mouth twisted and she snorted in derision of such an idiotic statement. “Anyone whose eyes light up when they see a shiny freaking candy bar wrapper can’t be all that bad.”

“What is candy?”

“Candy is the best freaking thing you’ve never had.” Ruby assured her. “We’ll eat lots later.”

“Ah.” Mal had understood some of that. She thought. She glanced back at the screen and shot to her feet. “There is a dragon in the mirror!”

She whirled on Ruby, teeth bared, fire sparking between her lips and pointing at the screen.

“Who dares imprison my kin?!” Her voice shook the entire room and Ruby’s eyebrows shot up.

“Whoa, hey, whoa, easy there, scales.” Ruby held up her hands in surrender and hit ‘pause’ on the movie. She spoke calmly and quietly. Exactly the same way she did whenever Reggie went all Uber mode. “I told you, it’s a story, nobody’s trapped anything anywhere. It’s technology. It’s pictures, lots and lots and lots of pictures all flicking on the screen faster than we can track one after the other to give the _impression_ of movement. The voices and sounds are recorded to be in synch with the pictures. It’s just a story made up by a bunch of guys and they painted it all and recorded their voices to make it seem real.”

Mal frowned down at her and her arm slowly lowered so she was no longer pointing at the screen.

“They are not enslaved?”

“No. That’s the whole point of the story. They’re not enemies and they’re not slaves.” Ruby nodded and patted the seat beside her. “You wanna see how that happens?”

Mal frowned still, mulish for long moments, and then slowly retook her seat on the couch. Wary of being swallowed again but sinking down into the treacherous bog furniture anyway.

Still, she was forced to lean into Ruby because of it so that was something.

“See? Look.” Ruby used the remote to play the movie in slow motion and Mal watched with interest. Still frowning but seeming to calm.

She nodded slowly.

“Attagirl.” Ruby pressed play and the movie began again with several Scottish sounding Vikings and their American sounding children fighting off the dragon horde.

Mal snickered when Hiccup nearly got eaten and hissed in displeasure when he shot Toothless down.

Ruby smirked, watching Mal take in the technology for the first time, and looked up when Granny entered the room.

“We didn’t do anything!” Ruby quickly defended herself.

“Yet.” Granny grumbled at her. She bustled over to the coffee table and set down the tray she had been carrying.

It had a six pack of sodas, a pile of candy bars, a bag of marshmallows, another of peanut butter M&M’s and a bowl piled high with popcorn.

Ruby beamed at her and Granny just grunted.

“Behave yerselves.”

“Yes, Granny.” Ruby elbowed Mal.

“Yes, Widow Wolf.”

Granny snorted and mumbled something about pro bono work and karma not being something that she could take to the bank as she disappeared out the door to head back to the diner.

“She likes you.” Ruby decided after a moment.

“How can you tell?” Mal was trying to subtly eye the shiny wrappers of the candy bars and considering how to steal them all to herself.

“Because she didn’t shoot you when you started yelling.” Ruby shrugged and popped the top of a soda can, handing it to Mal. “Hell, she’s even shot at Reggie a couple of times and _she’s_ her daughter.”

“By choice.”

“Considering what I’ve gathered of Reggie’s mom, that’s best for all of us.”

Mal growled low in her throat and sipped from the soda when she saw Ruby do it. She frowned at the taste but didn’t hate it. Cautiously, she sipped again.

“I shall eat that monster should I ever cross paths with her again.”

“Scales,” Ruby sipped her drink and smirked, “there’s a queue.”

Mal smirked.

She did, in fact, enjoy herself. She watched many of the moo-vees with the High Deaf and the fifty six inches. Hissed at the awful mistakes made by the storytellers about her fellow dragons, threw much of the popcorn and managed to pile most of the candy bars on her arm of the devouring couch.

And, when Ruby fell asleep against her shoulder, Mal did not rouse her to select another story.

Instead, she rested her cheek on top of the little wolf’s head and joined her in dreams.

When Granny came in and found them like that a war of expressions rolled across her face. She debated several reactions, chief amongst them yelling about the popcorn that was _everywhere_ , but in the end she simply drew a comforter over them both, switched off the television and went to bed herself.

It was far too late for yelling.

 

**_Back at the Manor…_ **

 

“Mom.”

Regina groaned and buried her head deeper into the pillows.

“Mom!”

Her eyes blearily opened one after the other and she slowly focussed on Henry. She stiffened a fraction and then relaxed when she realised she was in fact wearing something.

“What is it?” Regina lifted her head and Daniel grumbled behind her.

Regina subtly yanked the blanket firmly down over him because she remembered quite distinctly removing _all_ of his clothes.

“I can’t sleep.” Henry stood a couple of feet away from the bed as if unsure of his reception and Regina’s heart melted for him.

“Come on.” She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed and rose to stand beside him. Thank goodness this tee shirt drowned her. She took his hand and led him from the room.

“Where are we going?” Henry held her hand still when she led him past his own room and down the hallway to the airing cupboard.

Rummaging one handed, Regina appeared to ignore his question and pulled free a comforter from the pile of clean linens inside. She elbowed the door closed and padded further along the hall to the guest bedroom.

“Don’t wake Emma!” Henry urged her.

“Henry, she spent the last day as a dragon and used all of her magic to turn  back, she has a force five magical hangover, an _earthquake_ could not wake her now.” Regina explained firmly and then propelled him into the bedroom.

She could make out the slim shape of Emma insensate in the bed and she pushed Henry towards it. Giving him a gentle shove, Regina sat him down on the bed, bent and hoisted his legs up too so he was forced to lie down.

“In you get.”

“But I…”

“Hush.”

“Bu- -”

“ _Hush._ ” Regina told him firmly and snapped open the comforter, leaning down, she bundled it tightly around Henry. Giving him the tucking in of his life. “There. All better.”

Henry let loose a sigh.

“What if she doesn’t want me here in the morning?”

“Then I shall fillet her and eat her rare.” Regina muttered darkly though not entirely idly. She grinned a slash of white in the dark. “I’ll feed her to Mal.”

“Mo-om!” Henry sighed in exasperation.

“Hey, little prince, listen to me.” Regina knelt down beside the bed and took his face in her hands. “I do not like her, I do not particularly want her here and I do not trust her…but she _is_ your mother and I know that you love her. That is something that I will…deal with. I know that you love me too and that helps. I will always want you to choose me over her but that’s because I’m jealous and selfish. You shouldn’t let that stop you from telling her that you love her or spending time with her.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Regina nodded tiredly and leaned down, pressing a kiss to his forehead and then another to his nose. “Now, go to sleep.”

“Okay.” Henry whispered and Regina straightened, heading for the door. “And, mom?”

“Yes, sweetheart?” Regina turned in the open doorway, gripping the handle with one hand.

“Thanks.”

“Goodnight, Henry.” Regina smiled and gently closed the door over hearing her son’s returning answer.

“G’night, mom. Love you.”

“I love you too.” Regina smirked softly to herself and spoke so quietly that she knew he could not have heard her but he would know she had said the words all the same.

Turning, she padded back to bed and decided that she had an important appointment to keep in Daniel’s arms for the next six hours.

Back in the guest bedroom, Henry wriggled free of the confining comforter and turned onto his side so he faced Emma.

She looked less tense when she was asleep. Her eyes closed and her hand tucked under her cheek.

Henry reached out and tucked some hair back from her face. He studied her a long moment and decided to try it out. Just this once. To see what it was like.

“Goodnight…mom.”

Emma shifted just a little, a soft groan in her throat and Henry went very still. Her hand lifted, patting the comforter a moment and then coming down on Henry’s hand. She smiled and then nuzzled deeper into the pillows. Falling into true sleep once more.

Henry let out a slow sigh and relaxed.

Burrowing his face into the other pillow, Henry fell asleep with a smile on his face.     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, LAST ONE. 
> 
> Well, not really, I have another couple written but this is pretty run down of the drama at the halfway point in the fic. 
> 
> Anyway, I feel like I've been a little mean to Emma and I try not to write her as someone just to hate on because she's not a COMPLETE moron (don't quote me) and that's lazy writing besides. 
> 
> So she got a bit of a verbal beatdown here but that's not how it's always going to be with her. She's becoming more interesting the more I write her and she offers a good dynamic. 
> 
> Also, the introduction of MY version of Mal. Who isn't going to be much like the one in the show in all probability as, y'know, I don't rely on disney for all my ideas. 
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed and it was worth the wait. Updates from now on will most likely be single chapters but y'all know by now that my chapters are fairly lengthy. 
> 
> Drop me a message and I swear that I have every intention of answering the damn things. I've been terrible with it on this site but i DO read them all and love them just as much. I wouldn't write this without you guys cheering me on. 
> 
> So, thanks for all the comments and love up until now and...look forward to the rest of it :D
> 
> To read is an awfully big adventure.


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41 – Status Quo**

 

**_The Guesthouse…_ **

 

Mal’s eyes snapped open and she sucked in a deep breath when something moved against her.

She tensed, magic building behind her teeth and then slowly relaxed when she found nothing more threatening than a sleeping werewolf lying on her.

Mal lifted a hand to rub at her eyes and winced when the muscles and joints in this tiny body crackled and popped. Apparently, it was not designed for sleeping at an angle.

Mal was still trapped in the confines of the carnivorous couch, reclined back against one of the arms, her own arm had been tucked back behind her head to stop her neck craning, her other hand rested on Ruby’s back and the werewolf was stretched over the full length of the couch, her body lying between Mal’s legs and her head cushioned on the admittedly soft contours of Mal’s chest.

Mal smirked.

Still, as pleasing as it was, Mal was both ravenous and in need of finding the facilities. She had drunk much of the soda the night before and the bladder of this mammalian meatbag body was virtually non-existent.

Moving very carefully, Mal caught her lip between her sharp teeth and worked her arms under Ruby’s torso. Lifting her a little, Mal squirmed out from under her in a move that was not strictly human (she had to look like one, but she had made improvements to the monkey shape where she could). She straightened her clothes a little so they did not chafe and then padded from the room.

It took her a moment to find the bathroom and Ruby had explained the mechanics behind the indoor plumbing (best thing about this new world as far as Mal was concerned) and she stood on the landing once more and wondered what to do with herself.

Her stomach yowled and made the decision for her.  

She would find breakfast for the little wolf.

Now, where to look?

Mal’s mouth twisted as she realised she had no money. Even if she could find where the food was bartered for, she had nothing to offer for it. She had not had the time to accumulate a hoard in this grey world nor even find a cave for her to nest in.

Mal frowned. That would not do at all. She was the Dragon of the West. There were appearances to maintain. 

A To Do list forming in her head and her decision made, Mal padded down the stairs to the lobby of the guesthouse and –taking a moment to figure the locks- left through the front door and did not look back.

 

**_The Manor…_ **

 

Regina smirked when Daniel’s mouth came down over hers and his entire body loomed over her, caging her in his arms.

He tasted of sweat and marmalade. He’d had toast before he’d come back to bed to offer her some.

Regina’s response had been to drop it marmalade side down on his lap so she could clean up the mess.

With her tongue.

That had been over an hour ago. They’d taken their fill of one another twice and she was still… _hungry._

Her physical exhaustion was completely recovered. She was back to her usually energetic self when it came to her muscles and sinews but her magic…her magic needed further replenishing.

As always, it was an emotional thing.

Being around Henry the day before had helped but her magic, having as fierce a maternal instinct as she did, had set to restoring his needs first during their feedback so it hadn’t helped as much as it could have.

Daniel, on the other hand, could conjure lightning in her veins and fire in her head. Because she loved him, every time they fucked like rabid animals, her strength returned in leaps and bounds.

Regina groaned deep into him when Daniel’s cock slid into her again. Her nails bit into the muscles of his shoulders and her leg wrapped over her hips. She could feel him shiver over her.

Once more, she promised herself. Just once. Once more today and she’d let him recover. Her magic was nearly back to full strength. She could survive on just that until he’d had a chance to rest.

Daniel rolled his hips, drawing a gasp from her.

Probably.

She could probably restrict herself to just once more.

Regina tangled her fingers in his hair and drew Daniel’s mouth flush against hers once more. Her nails scraped over his scalp as his tongue thrust into her. She arched up against him as his hips lazily rolled against her, working her slowly to orgasm again.

Regina tried to dial back her excitement. Stop her nails from drawing blood, keeping her teeth to herself. To not scissor her legs too tightly about his hips and scream at him to go faster. 

“You,” he murmured between kisses, “are not enjoying yourself.”

“I am.” Regina assured him and she really was. “I’m just…awake.”

“I can feel that.” Daniel chuckled, nuzzling his face into her neck. “Nothing for it then.”

Regina squeaked in surprise when she was suddenly flipped. Daniel tumbled on his back, drawing her up to straddle him and lay back amongst the rumpled pillows of the bed. He wriggled beneath her, settling himself comfortably and stroked his hands over her hips.

“Take what you will.” His hips flexed beneath her and she hummed in approval when he thrust all the deeper for it.

“If you don’t want…”

“My spirit is very much willing, my love.” Daniel laughed and stroked his hands higher up over her ribs to cup her breasts, his thumbs dragging over her nipples. “The flesh, however, is somewhat drained. Three times in an hour is demanding. Even on someone so motivated as I.”

Regina’s back arched and she hesitated still.

His hands slid back down to her hips again and he lifted her up off his cock and brought her back down in a slow and deep rhythm that gave her the full length of him with every rise and fall.

Regina groaned in approval, needing no further encouragement, rocking her hips and beginning to ride him in earnest. She canted forward, panting, and braced her hands on his chest. She could feel his huge heart pounding beneath his ribs, feel the cording and ripple of his muscles, the shivering tension quivering through him.

Daniel growled when her nails dragged lightly over his chest, raking the hair there. His hands tightened on her hips, yanking her more firmly down onto his cock, bucking up to meet her as she fell.

She felt the tension coil low in her belly. Her breathing became harsher and her eyes turned a light swallowing black. Purple magic sparked from her eyelashes and she worked very hard not to scream.    

Daniel sat up, hauling her down hard against him and swallowing her little scream with his mouth fusing to hers. His arms wound around her waist and his entire body undulated under hers, grinding his cock into her with deep digging thrusts that knocked the breath from her with every lunge.

Regina’s fingers bit into his shoulders and she groaned into his kisses. He was close, she could tell, they were both hypersensitive to one another since the first two bouts of morning sex had apparently just been foreplay. He was close and she didn’t want to be left behind.

She rolled her hips in counterpoint to his, working his cock as deep into her as it could go. She moaned, her back arching and her hair swishing against her back and the sensitised scar Hyde had left there. Her nails ripped red lines into Daniel’s shoulders and arms as she rode him harder. He hissed out a pained breath and growled in approval. His eyes flashed and Regina laughed, delighted at teasing him.

Her tongue ran over her teeth and she grinned.

Her grin disappeared when Daniel snarled suddenly and flipped her. Her back met the sheets with a bounce. He rammed into her, his movements becoming ferocious and Regina groaned. He hammered her, his hips snapping in brutal movements, his teeth nipping hard at her neck.

Regina cinched her legs tight about his hips, her nails scored down his back, and the cool metal of his scar pressed shocking against her chest.

Regina screamed, bucking under him, and Daniel groaned, helplessly following her as her clenching orgasm ripped one from him too.

His hands fisted in the sheets, ripping them, her nails dug into his back. Pleasure mixed with pain and he shuddered over her. His arms, arms that could lift cars, shivered beneath his weight and he collapsed down onto his elbows. Quivering.

Regina was very nearly purring.

Her legs slid up and down his, her hips giving insidious little twitches beneath him, her inner muscles squeezing his cock still. Her hands stroked down his back and she nuzzled in his throat, sighing happily.

“Woman, you’re going to end me.” Daniel laughed, ducking his head to press a kiss to her chest over the beat of her heart.

“Sorry.” Regina huffed out a slow breath.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She was _still_ gagging for another round. Which would be round four and it wasn’t even eight in the morning.

It was his own fault, she decided. If he wasn’t so good at fucking her, she wouldn’t want it all the time.

“Nothing to be sorry for.” Daniel rolled onto his back and took her with him, stroking her and chuckling. “Though don’t think I don’t know that you’d have me again in a heartbeat. Salacious woman.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I shouldn’t be this…hungry.” Regina pulled away from him and rubbed her hand over his chest. “I’m going for a shower.”

“You don’t have to. I much prefer you naked and within arms’ reach.”

“If I stay here, you’re never going to get any rest.” Regina laughed at him and leaned down, kissing him quickly before she could get any ideas. “I will survive until you are recovered.”

“You’re sure?”

“The anticipation will make it all the better.” She smiled and slipped from the bed before he could convince her to stay by doing such seductive things as glance in her direction.

Regina rolled her eyes at herself and decided that she would distract herself with something benign like getting ready to face the day.

Glancing back at the bed, Regina smirked when she saw Daniel’s eyes closed, already asleep.

She made quick work of her shower, towelling off and drying her hair. She fussed over her outfit and picked a skirt for a change. She hadn’t worn one in a while, preferring her deputy uniform but she supposed that ship had sailed with Emma’s return.

Regina felt a pang at that. She had agreed to Charming’s little stunt so long as Snow and Emma were away and –now they were back- she found herself on the job market once more.

Regina let out a slow breath and decided that –if she was to be unemployed- she would look fabulous whilst doing so.

Her skirt was practically painted on it was so tight and it was a bitch to put on because of the row of tiny buttons made of miniature nuggets of gold that ran all the way up the back of it. Her shirt was white with a wide and dramatic collar, she wore a necklace that matched the skirt’s buttons about her neck and –all in all- looked ready to seize the day.

She might even manage to make it out the bedroom without giving in to the temptation to seize Daniel ‘just once’ more.

Regina stepped out of the walk in closet and smirked when she saw Daniel sprawled across the bed. The room positively reeked of sex and Regina summoned control over herself again when the heady scent filled her head.

Her skin was tingling, she could feel her pulse in every inch of her. Hell, even her _hair_ felt aroused and she was trying hard to dial it back to a manageable eleven.

Luckily for Daniel’s exhausted self, the shout of her name distracted her.

Regina hurried out of the bedroom and into the hallway. She frowned, orientating where the sound came from. Emma? Henry?

No, Henry wouldn’t call her by her name and Emma had to still be out for the count.

“Reggie!”

The frantic voice sounded again along with the pounding of feet on the stairs and Regina recognised who it was immediately.

“Ruby?” Regina met the werewolf at the top of the stairs and frowned at her appearance.

Ruby was rumpled all over. Her clothes skewed, she looked to have slept in them, her hair wild and her eyes wide. She was breathing hard and the scent of magic coming from her told Regina that she had run here as a wolf.

“What’s wrong?” Regina was immediately on high alert.

“Mal’s gone!”

“Oh.” Regina let loose a sigh and relaxed. “Is that all?”

“Whaddya mean ‘is that all’?!” Ruby nearly yelled, drawing a surprised blink from Regina. “She’s missing!”

“She’s a dragon.” Regina reminded her sister. “More than capable of looking after herself and exceedingly curious. She is most likely off exploring her new home.”

“But she’s all alone.” Ruby bit her lip and switched from foot to foot. “And I can’t track her.”

Regina frowned a little at that. She had thought there wasn’t a beast alive that Ruby couldn’t hunt.

“Ruby, she probably just switched forms and went flying. She likes to do that. She’ll be on a bluff somewhere basking. No harm done.”

“But what if she isn’t?” Ruby wouldn’t –or couldn’t- let it be. “This town’s dangerous to people that don’t know about it. What if she flew into the barrier? She doesn’t know anything about it and we don’t know how high it goes and what happens if she crosses it whilst she’s a _magical_ dragon and she goes into the world without magic and…”

“Okay, first of all,” Regina held up a hand to silence Ruby, “take a breath. Secondly, the barrier goes up at least a mile and Mal has no reason to fly higher than that. She doesn’t like the cold air. _Thirdly_ the barrier shows up like neon signage to those of us that have magic. She’s not going to cross it unless pushed over it and there are acts of God that can’t push Mal over. She’s _fine._ ”

Ruby huffed out a breath and shifted from foot to foot. Regina rolled her eyes.

“You want me to help you find her.”

“I’m responsible for her.”

“You can’t be responsible for her.” Regina softened her tone when Ruby flinched as if struck. “I meant that she can look after herself. There isn’t a thing on this planet that can overpower a dragon. You saw yourself, even with Rumple and I working together, we couldn’t beat her. It was a trick on my part that got her in the end and –even then- it was she who stopped herself.”

“In her dragon form.” Ruby said quietly, worry pouring from her. “She has to be a lot weaker in her human form if her change works similarly to the way mine does.”

“That is true.” Regina allowed and hurried on when Ruby opened her mouth to finish winning her argument. “Fine! Fine. We can go and look for the giant gecko who will be lazing about on a rock somewhere.”

“Good.” Ruby appeared to relax.

“Hey, Ruby, what’s going on?” Henry spoke sleepily as he padded down the corridor.

“Mal’s missing. We’re going looking for her.” Ruby didn’t have the sense not to lie to Henry and waved at Regina as she spoke.  

Regina shot a glare at Ruby but Henry had already perked up considerably.

“I can help!”

“Really?”

“You gotta teach me magic sometime.” Henry had obviously been rehearsing the argument and was fully prepared. “You said that I had to learn how to run away and then find you or David first. How am I supposed to find you without a tracking spell?”

“My cell phone?” Regina arched a brow at him but the corner of her mouth was quirked in a smirk.

Henry opened his mouth and then clapped it shut. He hadn’t thought of that. Next tactic.

“You can’t leave me here on my own. Emma’s sleeping and I don’t know where Daniel is.”

“Sleeping too.” Regina murmured and elbowed Ruby without looking at her when the other woman snorted. She knew damn well what Daniel was sleeping off.

“Exactly! What _could_ I get up to without a responsible adult around? I could run with scissors or get into the childproof bottle tops or slide down the bannister or trip over my shoes that I keep leaving on the stairs or…”

“Alright! Alright.” Regina smirked. “We can start learning today. Tracking spells first.”

“Do we have time…?” Ruby began and a single glance from Regina cut her off.

“Go and get washed and dressed. We’ll wait for you.” Regina tousled Henry’s hair and he practically bounced with excitement as he dashed towards the bathroom.

She rounded on Ruby.

“We have time.” She spoke firmly before Ruby could get a word in. “I promise you. Mal is in no danger. She is my best friend, I would know if she were in any danger.”

“How?” Ruby frowned looking…well, she looked a little jealous.

Regina filed that away and moved to answering before Ruby could realise what she had seen. Ruby didn’t appear to even realise how irrationally she was acting.

Regina decided not to tell her and just let it run its course.

“She promised me once, long ago, that if I ever needed rescuing; she would come. The connection goes both ways. I would know.” Regina shooed at Ruby. “Now, come here. You look like hell.”

She took Ruby by her wrist and led her to the bathroom downstairs. She thrust her through the door and ordered her to clean up.

If she must have an entourage, they should at least be presentable.

Listening to Ruby splashing about in the bathroom, Regina took herself off to the kitchen to sneak a cup of coffee before the day’s adventures began. She heard her heels clip over the floor and frowned down at her outfit. She looked fabulous, obviously, but she knew Mal.

The dragon had ever disliked the company of people and she would be far more likely to investigate the forest and lands surrounding the town rather than the boxy little buildings and –what did she call them- puny pinklings that lived within. 

Ergo, it was highly likely that Regina might be tromping through the countryside at some point and Jimmy Choos good hiking gear did not make.

Regina hesitated and then realised that she was going to have to start doing magic again at some point. She hadn’t been lying with her analogies to magic being like using muscles. If she didn’t start flexing them again, they were going to atrophy.

Regina summoned some magic and waved a hand over herself. Purple smoke bloomed in the wake of her fingers, silver sparks flew and –when it receded- Regina was left standing in knee high boots, dark leggings, her white shirt still and a short leather jacket.

She poured her coffee and took a sip, savouring the taste. Her peaceful moment couldn’t last.

Henry bounded into the kitchen, his hair still damp from the shower he’d obviously just dived through. Still, he was grinning so broadly, she didn’t have the heart to send him back to wash more thoroughly.

“Where’s Ruby? Are we ready to go?” Henry noticed her change in clothes and beamed at her. “You look pretty.”

“Thank you.” Regina smiled and summoned a glass of juice for him and a chocolate croissant.

“Thanks!” Henry dug into the food and then frowned at her after a moment. “You using magic for little stuff now?”

Regina was glad to note that there wasn’t a trace of distrust in him. He was simply curious since she had been so reticent to fling magic about for such paltry tasks in the past.

“Just easing back into things.” Regina drained her coffee and moved to the sink to rinse it. “It’s best to start with small things.”

“Will I have to do that? Small stuff before the tracking spell?”

“No, the tracking spell you’re going to do is fairly localised. You’ll be fine and I’ll be here to ‘catch’ you if it gets too much for you.”

“Cool.” Henry wolfed down the rest of his pastry and drained his glass of juice, hurrying over to the sink to rinse them and put them away himself.

Regina smiled when she realised it was something he had picked up from Daniel. Henry had eagerly helped him clear up the night before, wanting to spend more time with the man now that he was sure the affection he felt went both ways between them. Daniel had told him then that he should always clear up a mess he made.

Not least of all because it made him more likeable to the ladies not to be a slob.

Regina had expected Henry to wrinkle his nose in disgust at that but he had simply blinked up at Daniel and became thoughtful for a moment before returning to drying the dishes.

Regina frowned a little and put all the pieces together. Hmm, she was going to have to have a word with Eleanor.

Henry was only eleven, she assured herself, they had a few years yet…but she remembered being a teenager herself (having been strongly reminded by Daniel). Hormones often replaced any kind of good sense with alarming ease and Merida was beginning to grow out of her brat phase and into her role as ‘beautiful princess’. That and if Henry took after his family and their ability to _find_ True Love…well, Regina would deal with that when she came to it, she supposed.

Henry was still her little boy for now and she would not give him up to anything –even a romantic interest- without a fight. She would deal with the possibility of an excruciatingly embarrassing discussion on the facts of life and how to prevent any unwanted surprises (be they progeny or venereal in nature) later.

Regina grimaced a little.

She’d make Emma do it.

“We ready?” Ruby surged into the kitchen, definitely looking better than she had before her enforced clean up. Her hair had been brushed at least.

“Very nearly.” Regina approached Ruby and studied her rumpled clothes a moment. Ruby scowled at her but didn’t move when Regina reached out to pluck something from the material of her shirt.

She lifted a curling blonde hair from Ruby’s shirt and held it up to the light. She looked sideways at Ruby, smirking, and arched a brow.

Ruby cleared her throat and told herself sternly not to blush. She had done nothing wrong.

“Perfect.” Regina didn’t look away from Ruby for a long moment and then turned back to Henry. “Here, give me your hand.”

Henry held out his hand without hesitation and watched with rapt attention as Regina took one of his fingers and carefully wound the single golden hair around it like a ring. Over and over until it was securely tethered to him.

Henry said nothing and looked up at his mother expectantly, waiting for her to elaborate with an eager patience that he so rarely exhibited.

Regina smiled.

“Alright, now, the important thing to remember about magic is that it has a price, Rumple is right enough about that, but it needn’t always be painful or dark. I would hope you have learned that much in the last few weeks.”

Henry nodded quickly and enthusiastically.

“Good, now, this is going to cost you in energy. To begin with, magic is going to be quite taxing on you, it will make you tire quickly. You will have to take magic from the world around you. It’s very difficult to do. Do you still want to do it?”

“Of course.” Henry nodded. “Now that I know all this is in here,” Henry waved vaguely at himself and Regina took that to mean that he was referring to his magic, “I figure not using it might be a little stupid. I don’t want it to go off in my face or –worse- hurt somebody else ‘cause I was ignoring it.”

“Very good.” Regina smiled at him again, pleased with him and Henry beamed right back at her. “Another thing you need to be aware of is willpower. Everyone knows you’re a headstrong boy but you’re going to have to become even more stubborn if you want to master your magic.”

“I can do it.”

“I mean it, Henry, particularly with Storybrooke magic. It can get a little…displeased with being told what to do.”

“But you manage just fine.” Ruby pointed out, trying not to let her impatience get the better of her. Her inference was clear; Regina could do this spell in half a minute and –whilst Ruby was all for Henry learning to control his power- she wanted to find Mal toot sweet.   

“Exactly, and it took me weeks to become so friendly with it.” Regina ignored the grinding of Ruby’s teeth and turned back to Henry. “So you won’t be using the Storybrooke magic, you’ll be using mine.”

“Won’t that hurt?!” Henry looked horrified.

“Of course not.” Regina waved it away. “It will take more than one little boy and his tracking spell to drain me. Now, let’s go outside and I’ll show you what to do.”

“I’m not so little.” Henry grumbled a little but traipsed after his mother, Ruby close on his heels, to the backyard. They all stood on the decking and Regina looked about herself.

“Listen.” Regina instructed Henry and picked up a leaf that had blown onto the decking. She held it out to Henry and magic shimmered in her eyes for a second.

Henry heard that beautiful chiming noise that he had come to associate with his mother’s magic, listening intently, and smiled.

He could see it, hear it, whatever. He could understand the spell! He blinked when the knowledge just unfolded in his head. He felt a frothing kind of sensation in his chest and he lifted his hand, looking intently at the strand of gold hair wrapped around it.

He imagined the strange feeling in his chest and tried to point it at the hair, like his mom had pointed it at the leaf. She’d enchanted it to go back to its tree and –when she let it go- it would fly off there. Henry wanted to find Maleficent which meant he had to get the hair –that was part of her- to want to go back to the rest of her.

He felt the power roll up through his chest and down his arm. It filled his hand and then he tried to get it all to go into the hair. He figured he would need quite a bit in order for the range of the spell to blanket the entire town. He began to feel very woozy very quickly and he was dimly aware of his mom’s expression changing to something worried. 

Regina, realising how incredibly quickly Henry had caught on, clapped her hand down on top of his head and opened up her magic to him.

Just a little, she didn’t want the hair shearing his finger off if he poured too much power into it but his eyes widened with a sudden understanding when he realised what he was feeling.

“Holy shammoly! Is that YOU?! Is all of that you?!” Henry stared at her and Regina smiled.

“Yes, all of that is me.”

“But…” Henry’s focus seemed to go through her a little. He smiled finally. “No wonder you always look two feet taller.”

Regina chuckled and Ruby was mystified enough to be drawn from her impatience.

“Is she all what?”

“It’s like…” Henry struggled for an explanation for a moment. How could he put into words what he just _felt_? “It’s like in _Up_ when he uses all the balloons to lift the house. All the balloons are magic and what they could do is lift the house. If I’ve got enough balloons to lift a house, I’m pretty sure that mom could lift a city block. A city block with the Empire State Building on top of it.”

“That’s not really as hard as you think it is.” Regina smiled for him but she was pleased with how he had managed to communicate his feelings into words and that he had also gotten a good sense of his own magic. It was good that he knew his limits.

“Of course it isn’t.” Ruby twisted her mouth at Regina and the sorceress realised that the werewolf’s patience was rubbing a little raw.

“Alright, do you think the spell will work?” Regina looked down at Henry.

“I know it will work.” Henry assured her and she grinned. He was catching on.

One of the hardest skills in magic was to _know_ that you could do the impossible. To never question your abilities. She should have known that Henry would master that as quickly as he had anything else.

“Can we go now?” Ruby was back to shifting from one foot to the other, eager to be on her way.

“Yes, I think it will go faster on four legs, don’t you?”

“I don’t think I can shapeshift yet.” Henry frowned.

“Not you,” Regina smiled at him, “us. I’ll carry you.”

“I won’t be too heavy?”

“Henry, as a wolf, I’m the size of a pony. There are _cars_ that aren’t too heavy for the wolf.” Regina twisted to look when she felt a shimmer of magic and Ruby was already in her huge dark form.

Regina rolled her eyes at Ruby’s impatience, she apparently trusted Regina with her own life, but not Mal’s safety. Regina decided not to take offence.

“How will I be able to tell you where to go if you’re carrying me?”

“I’ve got that covered.” Regina grinned at him, her teeth suddenly too big for her mouth and the magic rolled over her.

It wasn’t her usual magic. It was a rolling shimmer of brilliant gold and –when it dimmed- a huge dark wolf stood in front of Henry. So large that the tip of her ears were at eye level with him.

She was also wearing a saddle and a large collar around her neck with reins attached.

 _You can tell me where to go with these._ Regina shook herself to jangle her reins and spoke to Henry in the manner of wolves.

He blinked at her voice suddenly filling his head. He thought for a moment and then replied.

Regina gave a chuffing sound that Henry took to be a wolf’s version of a laugh. Her tail swished back and forth and she twitched when Ruby slunk close and nipped her on the ear with her teeth.

Henry was treated to a muted sensation in his head, like someone was yelling in a different room from him.

Ruby growled, but it was the grumbling sound of someone who had been thoroughly chastised and didn’t like it.

 _Come on._ Regina turned her attention back to Henry and sank down into a low bow.

Henry wasted no time in carefully scrambling onto the back of the giant wolf that had been his mother a few seconds before. True to her words, she didn’t seem to even feel his weight as she straightened back to her full height.

 _Which way_?

Henry focussed on the hair around his finger, carefully ‘listening’ for the tug of the spell and then picked up the reins. He tugged Regina in the right direction.

“Thataway.”

Regina gave another chuffing sound and Henry felt a ringing shimmer of something coiling around him. The magic equivalent of a safety belt he imagined.

_Hold on._

Regina barely gave him the chance to grip the saddle horn before she bounded off the decking in a soaring leap that carried her nearly entirely across the backyard. As soon as her paws hit the ground again, she surged in another leap and sailed clean over the ten foot hedge that hemmed in the garden.

Her teeth bared at the sound of her son’s laughter.          

 

  ** _High Above Storybrooke…_**

 

“I think we’re really close.” Henry shifted in his saddle, looking around. “The hair’s really hot now and it’s just kind of throbbing.”

 _Alright, off you get._ Regina sank down into a crouch again and Henry clumsily staggered down off her back.

He wobbled backwards and fell on his butt. His legs had gone numb a while back, strained from squeezing tightly to his mom’s ribs to stay aboard. Riding a wolf was not at all like riding a horse, even with her magic, he’d had to work quite hard to stay with her in all the leaping and bounding.

He knew that had been intentional. Not to hurt him, but he suspected to teach him how to remain focussed even whilst distracted with his burning leg muscles.

All in all, he was pretty tired.

His mom as a wolf reared up on her hind legs and shimmered with that golden magic again. She was human shaped once more before she was forced to topple forward as a wolf and she squirmed a little in her clothes. Straightening them several times before they felt right again.

Ruby did the same though she switched back into a crouch and straightened up.

In her opinion, there was nothing wrong with being an all fours to turn back, Reggie was just showing off.

“So, where is she?” Ruby dusted her hands off on her jeans.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Regina crouched down in front of Henry rather than answer that right away.

“Yeah, my butt’s numb and I’m tired, is all.” Henry grinned and let her help him up.

“Let’s turn this off, hmm?” Regina took his hand in hers, her thumb rubbing over the hair wound around his finger.

“Right, uh, okay.” Henry thought for a moment and wondered how exactly he should go about doing that. He bit his lip and then shrugged. His mom was here to help if he got it wrong.

He found that frothing feeling that seemed to well out of some part of his chest deep behind his sternum and…closed it.

The throbbing of the ring of hair ceased immediately though the heat took a while longer to dissipate. Henry opened his eyes to find his mom beaming a smile at him.

“ _Very_ good.”

Henry grinned, pleased with himself.

“Yeah, super, here be dragons?”

“Yes, yes, here be dragons.” Regina scowled at her.

She’d had to put up with Ruby’s semi-internal monologue on Mal since they had left the house over an hour ago. Their speed had been truncated by carrying Henry and not wishing to sheer his face off but Ruby had remained highly strung and anxious the entire time and it was seriously beginning to grate on Regina.

“Where?”

“You can’t smell her?”

“I smell her everywhere!” Ruby rounded on Regina and then cut herself off. She sucked in a couple of deep breaths and held up her hands. “Sorry. I…sorry. I don’t know what’s up with me.”

“Hmm.” Regina rocked her jaw to the side and then let it slide. “Perfectly alright. You’re worried. It’s understandable.”

“It is?” Henry looked up at his mom and earned an elbow in the ribs for his troubles. She shot him a look that clearly read ‘hush’.

Henry held his tongue, he was pretty sure his mom would share the gory details with him later. She did share things with him now. That was nice.

“This way.” Regina nodded up the hill and took off with a long stride.

Ruby hurried after her. Regina might be five foot and a kitten sneeze but she sure could put on a turn of speed when she wanted to. Ruby had to stretch her legs to keep up and she stalled when she reached the top of the rise and saw what lay beyond.

“Holy cow.” Henry’ eyebrows shot up and he glanced up to see Ruby looking as shocked as he did.

His mom, of course, was surprised by none of it and had her arms folded over her chest with a small smile on her face.

A canyon yawned before them and, on the rise on the other side, Mal prowled about in her ginormous dragon form. Sixty feet of magical reptile moving with utter silence that was quite terrifying to behold. She hopped from rock to rock up to the top of the hill, a shard of granite in her mouth that was as long as a truck, and carefully propped it there amongst a great many others that she had already stockpiled.

She shimmied this way and that, raking her claws through the gigantic rocks, settling them just so. She pawed and kneaded at them like a cat does its favourite spot on the couch and then arched her neck and let loose a torrent of green fire from her mouth onto the stones. It sounded, to Regina and Henry, like a voice deeper and older than anything else they’d ever heard singing a deep bass note.

The fire blasted white hot, the stone melting beneath it and, when the heat haze and magic had cleared, a sculpted tower was left in its place.

Mal was nesting and her nest was a castle.

She sniffed at the tower, prowling around it and shuffling her wings over her back. She moved over the battlements and ramparts that she had already sculpted with magic and rocks torn from the earth with neat clicks of her talons.

Regina glanced at Ruby and Henry, pleased that they’d gawked long enough and then cleared her throat.

It was a small sound, loud enough for Henry and Ruby to hear and not much further than that but Mal’s head snapped around, the frills and spines around her head flaring to catch the sound, as quickly as if Regina had set off a cannon.

Mal just looked at them for a long moment and then hurled herself from the battlements in a great soaring bound. She beat her wings once with a colossal clap like thunder and then pounced to land neatly beside them with barely a sound or a shudder from the ground even though she weighed something in the region of twenty tonnes.

“ **Good morning.”** Mal’s huge eyes glittered as she looked over the three of them. “ **Out for a morning’s constitutional?”**

“Ruby wanted to check in.” Regina spoke mildly but she wasn’t above stirring things up to see what might happen.

 **“Did she?”** Mal focussed all that laser attention on Ruby but was distracted by Henry hurling himself forward to stand directly beneath her nose.

“Did you build all of that this morning?!” Henry pointed across the ravine to the half finished castle.

 **“Most of it. The majority of the cave is naturally occurring. I simply had to widen the opening and begin fortifications.”** The huge dragon shrugged a monumental shoulder in a very human movement.

“Coooool!” Henry gaped and then turned to his mom. “Can you do that?”

Regina looked over at the castle and mulled it over. She did the calculations, factored in the variables and then slowly nodded.

“I did it with your castle. It is similar but on a much grander scale.” Regina bowed her head to Mal in acknowledgement of her skill. Only a day in this world and she was already on speaking terms with Storybrooke’s magic.

Regina knew fine and well that the tempestuous storm that was the local magic might well construct a cave-in should it take exception to Mal uprooting stones and reforming them but it would seem that the dragon’s charm worked even on recalcitrant geysers of magic.

 **“I should think so too. I have had MUCH longer to practice. Though it has been an age since I had to make a new roost and even longer since I had to collect a hoard.”** Mal frowned a little, studying the castle construction from a distance to gain a little perspective. Perhaps she should move the rampart there a little further to the East so as to follow the natural contour of the land.

“Ah, about that…” Regina didn’t get to finish.

“Mom, you should help!” Henry bounded over to her, his fatigue apparently forgotten in the face of new magic. “You could teach me how to build stuff and Mal could be finished quicker so she can go back with Ruby to the guesthouse.”

 **“Back to the…?”** Mal was cut off when Regina kicked her quite hard in the foreleg.

“A word, gecko.” Regina jerked her head along the edge of the ravine and strode away.

Mal frowned, a little nonplussed, but trailed after her, neatly stepping clean over Henry and Ruby’s heads as she did and carefully lifting her tail so as not to swat them flat.

“In private.” Regina cast a glance back at Ruby and Mal, following her gaze but not her line of thought, nodded slowly and did as she was asked.

She dropped down to lie in a sphinx position and curled her tail tightly around so that Regina stood within a completed circle of the dragon’s body. There was a soft popping of air pressure and then not even Ruby could hear what they were saying.

“What do you think they’re talking about?”

“I’m not sure.” Ruby folded her arms over her chest and scowled.

She was NOT jealous of Regina. Mal was her best friend, of course they were going to have things to talk about. It was probably Regina telling Mal that she couldn’t go around stealing all the gold in Storybrooke or something.

“I think it’s you.”

“What?” Ruby looked down at Henry.

“You’ve been acting funny. Mom must be worried and asking Maleficent if she knows what’s bugging you. She loves you, you know.”

Ruby looked at him for a long moment and then smiled.

“Yeah, she does, doesn’t she.” She put her hand on top of Henry’s head and wobbled him a little. She turned to look back at Mal and Regina deep in conversation. Judging by the way Mal glanced back at Ruby several times, they probably were talking about her.

“It’s so weird how we never saw it.” Ruby frowned a little.

“Saw what?”

“How easily she can love people. How completely she does it. I mean, the spell that made us family is just a spell, your mom could have broken it in a heartbeat if she wanted to but…she didn’t. Granny invited her to be family and –when she accepted- that was it for her. It’s not just a spell anymore. We really are family.”

“Well, obviously.” Henry frowned. Why was everyone so slow on the uptake?

Aside from him and Daniel that was. They’d always known that Regina loved with everything she had in her. Even when Henry had broken ties with her to break the curse, even when he had driven that wedge between them, he had never once doubted she had loved him. He knew what she looked like, what she had sounded like, when she lied and she had never looked or sounded anything of the kind whenever she had said she had loved him.

“Heh, obviously.” Ruby smiled and nodded. Her eyebrows rose when Regina snapped something to Mal, reaching up to swat the dragon hard on the chin.

Mal lifted her head back and growled, a sound that set the silence spell around them to rippling and Regina just planted her hands on her hips and went toe-to-toe with the dragon without hesitation.

They glared at one another for a stretched moment then Mal snorted green magic and muttered something.

The change washed over Regina instantly.

She straightened up, smiling in the manner that showed she’d won whatever spat she’d started and she rocked back on her heels. She spoke with her tongue in her cheek and Mal snarled at her again.

Regina showed all of her teeth with her next grin.

Mal, deciding she’d been cornered long enough with a smug sorceress, whipped her tail up to break the spell and rose smoothly to her feet. She snorted green glitter at Regina once more and then turned back to Ruby and Henry.

“ **I have been informed that you are to be my helpers.”** Mal shot another look at Regina who sauntered along beside her back down the slope to grin at her son and sister. Mal continued in a low and evidently displeased tone. **“My thanks in advance.** ”

“Oh, if you don’t want us here, you don’t have to…”

“After you dragged our butts all the way out here?!” Henry stared up at Ruby. “What happened to ‘NOW Reggie!’?”

Ruby elbowed him sharply in the ribs and Henry grunted. Jeez, people could really just _tell him_ to shut up. He’d probably do it.

Mal cast a long look at Regina and then turned back to them.

 **“It is fine. I do not mind. I shall even carry you across the chasm. If I do not drop you, it is a sign of my honesty.** ”

Regina narrowed her eyes at the dragon.

“Cool!” Henry bounded forward so he stood at Mal’s elbow. He frowned up at her after a moment. “You meant on your back, right? I don’t wanna get in your mouth like a baby crocodile.”

Mal just looked down at him with a frown for a long moment and blinked.

“ **I do not want you in my mouth either. I don’t know where you’ve been.** ”

“Cool. Hold still.” Henry waited for no further permission and –using the spines on Mal’s elbow- hoisted himself up her leg to clamber over the leathery membrane of her wing and sit between the huge spines that lined her vertebrae.

 **“Inherited your manners from Regina, I see.** ” Mal grumbled and looked down at Ruby expectantly. “ **Well?** ”

“I, uh, well…”

“It’s this or I teleport you.” Regina drawled.

“Dragon Airways it is!” Ruby sprang up onto Mal’s back from a standing start and landed neatly behind Henry in a crouch. She settled herself carefully and gave a nervous smile when Mal turned to look back at her with raised scaly brows.

 **“Gina?** ”

“I’ll find my own way.” Regina gave a mocking little bow and disappeared in a plume of purple smoke.

“Man, I gotta learn that. I’d never have to take the bus _again_.” Henry huffed out a sigh and Ruby laughed.

 **“Hold on tightly.** ”

It was all the warning Mal gave them before she simply took off high into the air. She soared over the canyon with a single booming flap of her wings.

Ruby squeaked, clinging tightly enough to rumple scales but Henry whooped in delight and suited action to words.

“HANDS IN THE AIR!”

Mal frowned a little at that, bemused as to why Regina had been so insistent that her fledgling and the little wolf should spend the day seeing her build a nest but not completely displeased at getting to spend time with the wolf.

Perhaps Storybrooke was not so terrible after all.

 

**_The Manor…_ **

 

Emma cautiously poked her head into the kitchen and glanced around.

So far so good.

No undead guys with Y scars and an intense dislike for her.

Emma hummed low in her throat and wondered what to do.

She really didn’t want to have another run in with Daniel but neither did she want to do anything other than stuff her face with as much food as she could physically fit into her body without it coming out of her tear ducts. She didn’t know how to teleport and the time it would take to get dressed and go to the store and/or diner just seemed too damn long.

So she slunk into the kitchen and made a beeline for the fridge.

Opening the giant black monstrosity (seriously, two doors, about a bajillion shelves and an icemaker, who needed all that) she gave a small whimper when she saw enough goodies inside to feed an army.

“God, Regina, is it too late for you to adopt me too?” Emma scanned the fare on offer and hummed deep in her throat.

To be quite honest, everything looked delicious. Even broccoli and Emma hated the damn stuff.

She was biting into a crimson apple before she even realised what she was doing and hesitated only a second before the tart flavour registered and she took another gigantic bite.

She groaned at the taste and went on the hunt for cheese too. Oh, and grapes, she needed the grapes. God, was that brownies? Homemade brownies? It freaking was. Ham, apple juice, grape juice, some kind of puree thing that looked and smelled like pistachios (pistachio butter? Was that a thing?), cookies, iced coffee, a Tupperware of lasagne (of which she had heard many things but never had the chance to unhinge her jaw and swallow whole) and another four apples.

Emma had her first apple caught between her teeth when she turned to dump it all onto the island counter and go in search of bread because at least half of all that was being made into a Scooby Snack which she was honestly going to attempt to eat whole.

She may choke and die, but what a way to go.

Emma rummaged until she found the bread (homemade bread, seriously, she was moving in) and frowned only when she heard a soft clicking sound.

At first she thought it was a drip from the tap but the plumbing was excellent along with everything else in this palace of a house (the hot water certainly never seemed to run out) and she went completely stock still when confronted with the source of the noise.

Her first thought was; dog.

Freaking huge, biggest damn dog I’ve ever seen, fucking _dog_.

Then the ruff registered and the pointed ears and the electric blue eyes and the _blood_ all over his muzzle. Not to mention the way he watched her with those eyes like she was an entrée and licking those bloodied chops of his the whole time.

Not dog. Definitely, completely, so totally, _not_ a dog.

Wolf. Big. Bad. Motherfucking. Wolf. 

Emma _screamed_.

Full on Fay Wray, Hollywood starlet, pretty sure the human vocal chords should not make that noise, shriek of completely understandable and highly rational terror at finding an apex predator in the goddamn kitchen, scream.

Emma apparently did know how to teleport because she was up on the kitchen work surface and in the sink before she even knew what was happening.

Still screaming.

The wolf, for his part, rocked back a little at the noise, his ears pinning back and he honestly looked nearly as alarmed as she did. He backed up a couple of steps and, when she kept screaming, honest-to-god frowned at her in a ‘seriously’ expression.

“What’sgoingonwho’sdying?” Daniel slithered into the kitchen, evidently still half asleep and dressed only in a pair of shorts but ready to defend his home most vigorously.

He blinked –a lot- when confronted with a Saviour perched on the window sill, clutching at the blinds and screaming her thrice damned head off.

Daniel looked at her and then down at George and then back at her.

He was pretty sure she should have taken a breath by now.

“Wolf!” Emma finally managed to formulate words. “Wolf in the kitchen!”

Daniel made a show at looking down at George, who was now sat on his haunches and was glaring at Emma like she was something putrid he’d found stuck between his toes and accidentally licked, then looked back at Emma.

“Ye-es…”

“WHY?!” Emma pointed viciously at George. “Why is there a wolf in the kitchen?!”

“He’s probably thirsty.” Daniel pointed to what Emma had taken to be a strange water feature in the corner of the kitchen. Daniel turned back to George. “Go on, I’ll get her down.”

George snuffed in a ‘rather you than me’ manner and trotted over to the bowl, lapping up the cool water enthusiastically and sating his thirst.

Emma watched him in complete silence. The whites of her eyes showing all the way around. Her head turned to follow him when he finished his drink and trotted over to the French doors leading to the decking –affectionately licking Daniel’s hand on his way past. The doors slid open at his approach with a shimmer of magic and then clipped quietly closed behind him once he had slunk out.

She turned to look at Daniel and then raised her eyebrows in silent question.

Daniel didn’t really know what to tell her.

“That’s George.” He gave a shrug.

“And he just…invites himself in through the magic doggie door?” Emma waved wildly and then nearly fell off the window sill.

“Come here before you hurt yourself.” Daniel crossed the room towards her and –before she could even cite the emancipation proclamation and declare she was an independent woman- cinched his hands about her waist and lifted her down onto the floor like a child. “There. Better?”

“NO!” Emma sputtered. “Wolf! Wolf in the kitchen! What if Henry had been here?!”

“So what if he had?” Daniel shrugged helplessly. “Who do you think George comes here to stay with?”

“What?” Emma nearly whimpered.

“George is Henry’s familiar. They’re…best buddies, I think you call it here? They go most places together now.”

“Then why wasn’t he here last night?! When I had my gun on me and perhaps might not have screamed myself hoarse like a little girl without my penile extension security blanket?”

“I…don’t understand that reference.” Daniel raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips together. He frowned. “And he’s a wolf, not a pet. You saw for yourself, he comes and goes as he likes. We don’t collar him or keep him in the yard. He’s Henry’s _friend_ not a toy.”

“And everybody’s oh-kay with this?”

Daniel thought about it a moment and slowly nodded.

“I mean, David something about your mother not liking hair on her couch but I’ve pretty much discounted Snow’s opinion as something I should give a flying fuck about.”

Emma opened her mouth and then clipped it shut after a speechless moment.

She huffed in a couple of deep breaths and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Okay. Ooooh-kay. So…George, the wolf, hangs out with Henry…whenever he likes? At school as well?”

“Hmmmm…we haven’t got that far yet.” Daniel hedged and Emma’s superpower jangled.

“Why?”

“Henry hasn’t been at school for a while. He was having nightmares. Visiting the princess so we could communicate with you.”

Emma narrowed her eyes.

“Uh-huh.”

“All of that is true.”

“Not really honest though, was it?”

“You shall have to ask Henry to verify, now, do you want breakfast or would you rather climb back into the sink and scream a little bit more?”

“I think I’ll have breakfast and then maybe scream later. Keep my options open, you know?” Emma folded her arms over her chest and ordered herself not to look. “And –also- you might wanna consider buttoning up, Sir Gapes-a-Lot.”

Daniel frowned at her and then looked down.

“Ah, right, I’m going to find some pants.” He turned away from her and left the kitchen and Emma let loose a slow breath.

Emma took another couple of deep breaths and nodded to herself. She glanced at the clock and did a double-take at the time. She’d slept for eighteen hours. Holy crap. Just add it to the pile, she guessed.

“Right, so, wolves in the kitchen and being flashed by the Evil Queen’s undead…whatever he is to her and made a complete ass of myself to boot. Awesome.”

Emma wobbled her way to the cupboards to find a glass, picked up the bread and then found a knife for buttering purposes.

She picked up another for stabbing purposes in case there was a cougar in the pantry or something like that.

She glared at Daniel when he reappeared, fully dressed and looking a lot brighter, and he just smirked at her. Emma heaved out a sigh and deliberately smoothed her expression. She supposed she was in his house and she had just made a grade A fool of herself.

“You, uh, wanna sandwich?”

“That depends, is it going to be a triple decker with a slice of everything on offer?”

Emma bit her lip and looked at her own sandwich that she might face serious logistical issues with when it came to fitting the monstrosity into her mouth. She shrugged.

“Your mouth’s bigger than mine, you can probably take four decks.”

Daniel smiled suddenly and it was dazzling.

Emma blinked, a little nonplussed and then instantly wary.

Daniel’s smile dimmed a little and he pulled out a stool, hopping up onto it and resting his elbows on the counter. He nodded slowly.

“Four decks sounds fine.”

Emma studied him a long moment and shook her head.

“Where’s this coming from? Last night you told me I was nothing and now…?”

“Last night I didn’t see the resemblance.” Daniel shrugged. “A-and I was apparently being overprotective. That and I can still hear your heart pounding. I don’t think you can handle another confrontation and Henry might take exception to you being in less than stellar health.”

“You mean you wouldn’t just eat me to hide the evidence?” Emma raised her eyebrows but she wasn’t looking at him, she’d pulled a handful of bread slices towards herself and had set to slathering mayonnaise over the first three and then pistachio butter thing over the last two.

“I have often found the people that I wouldn’t mind eating are not the people that _need_ eating.” Daniel laced his fingers together and watched her over the top of them. They mostly hid his smile.

Emma smirked a tiny bit and it was an expression very much like the one Henry had made when he’d tentatively tried to befriend Daniel. When it had mattered so much to him that Daniel like him because his mom was in love with Daniel and someone who was important to Regina should be important to Henry.

Daniel wondered if a similar dynamic was at work here.

Did Emma care about what Daniel thought because she truly realised that he was part of Henry’s family as much as she was?

“I will…take that as a compliment.” Emma decided.

“You are not unworthy of such.”

Daniel watched with interest the way her eyes darted to his. Surprised that he would say something like that. He tilted his head, reading the reaction and mulling it over.

“They don’t tell you that very often, do they?”

“Who’s they?” Emma hedged.

“Your adoring public.” Daniel hummed. “Always expecting so much from you but…never giving thanks.”

“I…” Emma pressed her lips together and shrugged. “You just do what you gotta do, I guess. I shouldn’t need thanks for being a decent human being. Even…”

“Even if it would be nice?”

“Even if it means wrecking the life of the woman that gave your son everything you couldn’t…or wouldn’t.” Emma’s voice sank into nothing and her jaw rocked to the side. “I wasn’t unaware, you know. I asked Regina the first day I saw her, I asked her if she loved Henry and she said yes and…she wasn’t lying. I can tell. I can always tell.”

“Your super power.” Daniel nodded but said nothing more. She looked like she had to get this out.

“But I stayed anyway.” Emma sliced up grapes and layered them with blue cheese, clapping a bit of bread on top. This sandwich was going to be a food group in its own right. “I stayed and…I tried to take Henry from her because…because I didn’t realise what was missing until he was there…you know?”

She looked up at him a little desperately and Daniel nodded.

“I know.”

“Is that…how Regina makes you feel? I mean, I broke the curse because I truly love Henry and that breaks all curses and all that jazz but I think –I know- she loves him just as much as I do and she’s felt a loss that…that none of the rest of us have felt.” Emma went quiet again. She bit her lip and Daniel waited her out. “I guess, what I’m trying to say is, I get it. I get her. A little bit anyway. So maybe she went all Genghis Kahn for a while but –when I thought I’d lost Henry after the whole turnover escapade- I’d have murdered a planet to bring back my little guy.”

Emma blinked. She blinked a lot and sniffed and told herself that she wasn’t falling apart in front of a guy who she knew so little she couldn’t even have guessed his second name.

It had just been a really, _really_ , shitty month.

She busied herself with putting ham on top of cheese and adding another deck to the sandwich.

“It’s alright to be human.”

Emma looked up at Daniel with eyes rimmed with pink.

“You are allowed to sympathise with someone you have so much in common with. You are allowed to call her family because someone you love so much loves her as much as he does you. It is not shameful to the rest of your family to have compassion. It is not terrible to admire her for being what you could not. It is not unforgivable for wanting to thank her for giving him what you couldn’t.”

Daniel watched her drink in the words as if she had been waiting her entire life for someone to say them to her. Perhaps she had.

“I told you last night that you were nothing and I was angry so I let you think that was the sum of my opinion. It isn’t. You are not nothing, you are fluid. You are between one thing and the other. You’re moving from being the woman you were –the failure, the coward, the woman filled with regrets- to becoming the person that you always wished you were.”

Emma bit her lip and couldn’t look at him. If she looked at him she was pretty sure that she was going to cry like a baby.

“I never wished to be the Saviour.” Emma muttered.

“You were the Saviour. Curse broken. Destiny fulfilled. Now you can be something else.” Daniel shrugged.

“I…don’t exactly have a lot of prospects lined up for that.” Emma forced a wry chuckle and Daniel hummed in the back of his throat.

“You said you wanted to be a decent human being. You could start with that.”

“I don’t think ‘Decent Human Being’ _quite_ has the same ring as Prince Charming or Snow White.”

“I quite agree, why lower your standards in such a way?”

Emma looked at him sharply.

“Don’t give me that.” He spoke mildly but he was serious. “There is a difference between giving your child up to have a life you want for him but cannot hope to give and shipping them off to a different world in order to turn up _somehow_ twenty eight years later and fight your battles for you. You are _not_ the same as your parents. You didn’t expect anything of Henry other than to have a good life with a family that loved him and –ta-dah- your wish has been granted.”

Emma looked down at the pistachio butter and fiddled with the handle of her knife.

Daniel tried again to get through to her.

“You are allowed to feel things. You are allowed to let your heart run the full gamut of emotion. You do not HAVE to be sweetness and light because that is what you believe your parents to be because they are _not_. Believe you me, they are not.”

“The only thing I feel right now is…it’s a lot to live up to, you know? For the first time in…ever, I’ve got something to live up _to_. That, I dunno, isn’t that the price of having a family? That you gotta live up to the name?”

Daniel narrowed his eyes at her and puzzled her out. She was making so many excuses and for what? What could she possibly be hiding?

“You’re angry.” He said slowly and she frowned. He nodded. “You’re mad at them.”

“Why would I be…? They’re my parents, my family, I _have_ a family.” She waved her hands with a bit of a flail. “I have a family.”

“They’re not going to disappear on you.” Daniel shook his head. “You can be mad at them. Family means that you’re stuck with them, whether you like it or not, but you _do_ have the right to be –literally- royally pissed at them.”

“Why would I…?”

“They abandoned you?!” Daniel very nearly laughed. She could not honestly be this repressed.

“They did what they had to do.”

 “Bullshit.” Daniel clipped out the word. “You’re mad as hell about it. Mad as a bag of cats about it. They abandoned you as a baby and expected you to grow up into this title with no guidance at all other than –what- _finding_ them? You’re mad and hurt and all but crazed with it right down to the very heart of you and,” Daniel leaned in closer to her and looked her right in the eye, “that is perfectly okay.”

“I…I…” Emma’s mouth worked and she shook her head, looking blindly down at the sandwich that she seemed to be taking ten years to make. God, she was such a mess, she couldn’t even make a fucking sandwich.

She folded forward and put her head in her hands. She stared sightlessly down at the sandwich on the counter and she didn’t even realise she was crying until she saw her tears dripping onto the bread.

Once she noticed she couldn’t stop.

“I’m so mad at them.” She whispered hoarsely. “I’m so damn mad at them.”

Daniel’s hand came down on her shoulder, hot and heavy and somehow grounding. She wanted to scream when she realised that she could accept that from him but not from her own father.

“It’s okay to feel like that.”

Daniel said the exact words she needed to hear and Emma just…broke.

She clapped her hand over her mouth and howled out a sob. A sound she had never before made in her life. She was wracked by the storm of emotion that thundered through her.

Anger, sorrow, grief, fear, shame, all of it. All of that and more pounded at her from all sides. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rail. She wanted to trash this entire house and tear up the streets of this stupid little town because she felt trapped. Trapped and scared and ashamed that she couldn’t love her family.

She just _couldn’t_.

Because they had hurt her so badly.

“You don’t have to go back to them yet.” Daniel’s soft murmur got through to her despite her sobs that she tried so desperately to stifle. “You can stay here with us. Henry is our family and you are his and for that alone we will never send you away.”

Emma cried even harder at that and she tried desperately to stop.

She dimly heard the grating of the stool as Daniel stepped down out of it and leaned heavily into him when he tugged her into his chest and wrapped those strong arms around her. Arms that seemed to block out the rest of the world and just let her be.

He didn’t judge. He didn’t demand things of her. He just stood there and held her and told her the truth.

“Not ever, Emma. We’re not going to send you away.”

Emma couldn’t answer him. She could only cling to him and hope that he wasn’t lying because if he was, if this was a trick, it would break her clean in half.

“Promise?” She didn’t mean to say it but the choked word was out of her before the bedraggled remains of her pride could stop it.

“I promise.”

Emma’s superpower told her he meant it and she just couldn’t stop crying. She couldn’t be brave, she couldn’t be the Saviour, she couldn’t live up to the family name in that moment and Daniel was the only one to tell her that she didn’t have to.

No wonder Regina loved him with everything she had.    

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-dah!
> 
> Told you I was going to be less Emma-bashy than usual. She can be a fun character to play with when she wants to be. Updates are slow because a) I've been working on other projects both fanfiction and my own and b) college has been absolutely batshit insane and will apparently continue to be so until Easter. 
> 
> Super. 
> 
> Although, after that, I've got a holiday for two weeks!
> 
> YAY!
> 
> Who knows, I may even be productive. 
> 
> Laters!


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42 – Recharge Complete**

 

“You told her WHAT?!” Regina whipped her head up from trying to work her feet free of her mud caked boots and stared at Daniel.

“I told her she could stay. That we wouldn’t send her away.” Daniel shrugged his shoulder against the frame of the French doors and she could only gape at him.

“Why would you tell her that?!”

“Because we’re not going to?”

“Speak for yourself! As soon as David is finished with Snow she’s going back to that cubby little loft if I have to stuff her in a box and punt her through a portal myself.” Regina scowled at him. “I don’t want her in my house.”

“Well, I do and so does Henry. You’re outnumbered.”

“What on _earth_ gave you the idea that I have ever lived by the democratic system?” Regina dropped her hands from her boot, leaned back in the deckchair and lifted her foot towards him.

“She needs this, Regina.” Daniel shoved away from the doorframe and gripped her boot in both hands. He hauled and it slid from her foot in deference to his strength. “She’s a mess and she needs someone to just accept her for who she is.”

“You’d best not get me started on what I think she needs.” Regina muttered darkly but lifted her other foot so he might haul off that ruined boot too.

“You don’t hate her.”

“You sound pretty confident there, lover.”

“I know you. You don’t hate her.” Daniel set her boot aside and rested on one knee. His hands came down on top of hers on the armrests of the chair. “You’ve been many things to her, Regina, but you’ve never once expected anything of her and that is exactly what she needs right now. She’s spent the last month living with a fairy tale mother in a fairy tale land and realising exactly how much she has to live up to.”

“Who’d want to live up to _Snow?!”_ Regina snorted and rolled her eyes.

“Her daughter. Henry wants to live up to you.”

“He’d better not.” Regina looked back at him and he smiled.

“He already does.” Daniel squeezed her knee. “He does what he thinks is best and he loves with his whole soul. That is you all the way through.”

“I am NOT adopting another orphan.” She said after a long and mulish moment.

“Fine. Foster her a bit.” Daniel grinned at her when she scowled at him again. He sobered after a moment. “Please, my love, do this thing for me. I don’t want her to hurt if we can do something about it.”

“What’s this ‘we’ business?” Regina grumbled.

“I do not ask you often for things. I’m asking for this.”

“Could you not ask for a puppy? For me to parade around in nothing but my underwear? For a steak the size of your head for dinner?”

“I’m asking for this.” He smiled.

Regina let loose a low growl and turned her head away from him to scowl at nothing for a long moment.

“Fine.” She snapped after a long moment. “Fine. She can stay.”

“Thank you.” Daniel leaned up and kissed her on the cheek. “This will good for both of you I think.”

“Don’t you threaten me.” Regina kept her scowl though he could feel that she wasn’t entirely annoyed with him.

 She had felt a flickering of empathy. He knew it. If she hadn’t, she’d have refused and kicked Emma out that very night. She liked her son’s other mother more than she wanted to admit and she knew well what it was to have to live up to her parents’ expectations.

“Where is she?” Regina reached up and scraped her nails over his stubble roughened jaw. He shaved daily but he always sported a five o’clock shadow. Usually by about noon.

“In the living room with Henry.”

Regina hummed deep in her throat and he stood back to let her stand when she made to rise.

“Are you going to welcome her to the family?” He smirked and prowled after her when she padded across the decking and into the house.

“So to speak.”

Regina moved through the kitchen and towards the living room. She had intended to swan in snarking insults left and right but she hesitated when she saw what was going on. Slowing to a halt, she propped herself up against the archway leading into the lounge and watched the show.

“He’s really…safe?”

Emma sat up on the couch, as far away from the wolf on the floor as she could manage, her arms and legs tucked in close to her and looking very much like she wanted to rabbit if only she could.

“Safe’s the wrong word.” Henry sat beside George, his hand buried in the silver wolf’s ruff, scratching in a way that made George half close his eyes and rumble in pleasure. “He’s a wolf but you’re family, so you should be okay.”

“I should be?!” Emma nearly squeaked.

“You gotta stop freaking out and speaking so high. It hurts his ears.”

Emma just stared at her son and his new…friend and nodded dumbly. She cleared her throat repeatedly- and tried again in a more normal tone.

“Okay, okay, what else? What else do I do so he doesn’t eat me?”

“He’s not gonna eat you!” Henry wrinkled his nose as if that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. “At the worst, he’d snap at you and chase you away. Easily if this is how you react to him just sitting here like a fuzzy sack of potatoes.”

George’s eyes opened and he turned to look at Henry with his ears pinned back.

“Well you are.” Henry shrugged and George grumbled, leaning closer to Henry so that the back scratches may continue. Henry looked down at his familiar for a long moment and a scheming glint came into his eye. He twisted his mouth to muster down his grin. “Hey, George, you know Emma gives _really_ good scratches.”

Emma’s eyes widened at the same time as George lifted his head and turned those laser like eyes on her.

“Kid, you’re a cretin.”

 Emma made a break for it but George had already bounded up onto the couch and had both forepaws on her legs before she could even hurl herself over the arm of the sofa. He flopped down over her lap and shifted about until he was comfortable.

Emma pressed herself hard back against the couch, trying to get as far away from the wild animal as she could even though she was pinned down by him. She couldn’t stifle her squeak when George lifted his head with a frown when the aforementioned really good scratches did not commence.

Emma, being a survivalist, immediately buried both hands frantically in the ruff of fur around his neck and scratched in what she hoped was a good way. She blinked when the feel of her fingers scrunching through his fur registered.

“Ooh, he’s so soft.” She smiled and Henry grinned from his spot on the floor.

“That’s ‘cause he used to have human hair, mom says.”

Emma stilled for a half moment at that and then went back to her petting. She seemed to be warming to it in direct relation to how pleased George seemed to be. The wolf shifted around until he lolled over her knees on his side and she could move on to rubbing his ribs, cheek and ears.

Heaven.

“How…how much of King George is left?” Emma asked tentatively.

“Not very much at all, fortunately.” Regina finally joined the conversation and smirked when Emma flinched a little at her sudden appearance.

“Oh, uh, good. Uhm…hey.” Emma stammered after a moment.

“Hello.” Regina drew to a halt behind Henry and folded her arms over her chest, studying Emma for a long moment. “Daniel says you want to stay.”

“I, uhm…” Emma’s mouth worked a moment and she looked down at her hands in George’s fur. She shrugged. “A stupid idea, I gu- -”

“It’s fine.”

Emma’s head snapped up and she stared at Regina wide eyed.

“Don’t _gawk_ , Swan. It’s unseemly.” Regina settled her hands on her hips and scowled a little. “Though, if you wish to stay, there are _rules_.”

“Mom…” Henry wasn’t sure where this was going and even less sure that he wanted to find out.

“YOU can stay but THAT I will not suffer to be in my home.” Regina jabbed a finger at Emma and then the red leather jacket that had been slung over the back of the couch.

“Okay…”

As soon as the word left her mouth, Regina waved a hand at the jacket and it disappeared in a puff of smoke and glitter. Emma raised her eyebrows and swung her head back around to Regina when she spoke again.

“You will do your share of the chores and you will also learn to cook. If you’re going to be taking Henry for days at a time, you’ll be learning how to look after him properly.”

“Uh…fine?” Emma looked a little nonplussed when Regina raised her eyebrows at her.

“Well?”

“You mean now?”

“The lasagne for this dinner with Mal tonight won’t make itself.” Regina waved towards the kitchen and Emma tentatively shoved at George.

He bounded down off the couch, having been mollified with a thorough petting, and ambled back to sit by Henry again.

Emma hurried to stand, brushing the worst of the hair from her jeans and stood uncertainly when Regina looked her up and down.

“We’ll also need to see about getting some new clothes.” Regina huffed out a breath and looked down at Henry. “Think up a new operation name. Your mother is set to be a chore.”

Henry just beamed at her and she rolled her eyes and spun to leave the room.

“Come along!”

Emma was stunned for a moment and then hurried after Regina.

“Good luck.” Daniel smiled at her and she had to wonder if this had been a good idea after all.

She didn’t know if being an Operation to both Henry _and_ Regina would work out so well for her.

Still, at least she was going to learn how to make that damn fine lasagne that she’d eaten earlier.

 

**_The Ugly Duckling…_ **

 

“I’ve never been here before.” Emma stepped through the door of the bar and looked about herself. She frowned. “Regina lets you come here?”

“For sure, this is where Daniel works. He only ever lets me have beer on Wednesdays though.”

Emma whipped her head around, eyebrows shooting up and she scowled when she saw Henry grinning up at her. She huffed a sigh out of her nose and waved at the bar. “Let’s just…find your date and then we can go.”

“We’re not dating.” Henry scowled at her. “Merida and I are friends.”

“Uh-huh.” Emma rolled her eyes and preceded Henry into the bar.

 She nodded to a couple of patrons that waved to her and a few more that raised their glasses in her direction. It was a little unnerving to be the centre of attention and she was actually more comfortable with the people that avoided eye contact and shuffled away when they recognised her as the Sheriff.

“Hey, Eugene.” Henry hopped up to the railing that ran along the bottom of the bar and propped his elbows on top of the scarred wooden bar. “Is Merida in?”

“Hey, Henry,” Eugene smiled at him and his smile became slightly fixed, “Sheriff.”

“Off duty.” Emma nodded to him.

“My favourite kind of law enforcement.” Eugene beamed at her and turned back to Henry. “She’s, uh, over there. Talking to Galen.”

“Galen?” Henry frowned but turned to see the booth that Eugene had pointed to. He saw Merida sitting there alone and brightened considerably. “Thanks, Eugene!”

Emma was forced to hurry after Henry when he hopped down from the bar and made a beeline through the crowds in the bar. Emma would have felt a little alarmed at him wading through the hulking bikers, thugs and yobs that seemed to exclusively occupy the bar but they all greeted and stepped aside for him as if it was perfectly normal.

“Hi, Merida.” Henry slithered to a halt by her booth and the red haired girl looked up at him with a grin.

“Hiya, Henry!” She dropped her pen and straightened up from her books with an enthusiasm that made Emma’s brows raise in surprise. “What are ye doin’ here?”

“Well, I just came to…”

“Merida, who’s this?”

Henry spun to see the speaker and blinked up at the new contender.

This would be Galen then.

The boy was taller than Henry by a full head and shoulder. Slim with an athletic build, bright blue eyes and a mop of shampoo commercial hair that he flipped out of his face with a toss of his head.

Henry turned back to look at Emma with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. He pointed behind him subtly so that the other boy might not see and mouthed _‘seriously?!’_ to his mother.

Emma chewed her lip to keep from grinning.

Henry might not be dating Merida but it was clear that this was not his intended state of affairs if he could help it.

“This is Henry. Henry, this is Galen Mackintosh.” Merida waved between them. “He’s, uh, from back home.”

“We were to be betrothed.” Galen handed one of the drinks he was carrying to Merida and took a seat in the booth.

Henry did a double take at the boy and blinked rapidly.

“Hmm.” His voice sounded quite high pitched, even to his own ears.

“Oh!” Galen pointed at Henry. “Henry Mills, right?”

Henry’s smile was frozen on his face and he nodded. Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! The one guy in this town that he needed to be intimidated and maybe run away in terror and he didn’t even know who he was? Was there no justice in the world?!

“That’s me.” Henry hunched his arms over his chest and stuck his hands under his arms. “Oh, uh, this is my mom-one of them anyway- Emma Swan.”

“Hey, kid.” Emma leaned over the table and shook the handsome boy’s hand.

“The Sheriff, right?” Galen grinned at her.

“Can’t slip anything by you.”

Emma felt it was her duty as a mother to be as sarcastic as possible to the boy. Even if the trend of severely lacking observational skills in Galen might lead to him missing it entirely.

“We wernae betrothed.” Merida butted in. “At all. Ever.”

“You were going to pick me.” Galen slung his arms over the back of the booth and grinned lazily at her.

“So! Henry! What brings ye here?” Merida turned somewhat desperately to Henry again.

“I was, uh…” Henry stammered to a halt and looked at Galen again.

He felt his confidence waver in the face of such staggering competition. He wasn’t big, he wasn’t strong, he didn’t have fantastic hair or sky blue eyes and he was smaller than even Merida. He huffed out a breath and forced a smile, shaking his head.

“It’s cool, we were just passing by on our way to dinner and…never mind.” He shrugged and tried not to let the heat he could feel singing his chest crawl up his neck and into his face.

“You wanted me tae go with ye?” Merida’s brows rose and she beamed a smile at him when he shrugged and nodded and then shook his head as if not at all sure as to what he wanted to admit to. “Aye! Of course I will!”

Henry blinked in surprise when she slapped her homework book closed and sidled hurriedly out of the booth and snatched up Henry’s hand.

“Let’s go ask mum!”

“Ack!” Henry yelped as he was spun around and hauled away by Merida.

Emma watched them go and turned back to see Galen, eyes wide and mouth hanging open in surprise.

Emma worked hard not to grin, stuffed her hands into her pockets and spun on her heel to trail after Henry. She caught up to them when they had cornered who was presumably ‘mum’ and found Merida speaking earnestly to the taller brown haired woman earnestly.

Still holding Henry’s hand.

He turned and grinned at her.

“Henry, where is it you’re going?”

Henry whipped back around to see Merida’s mother and put on his most respectable face and voice.

“Mom’s gonna take us up to Maleficent’s castle and we’re going to have a kind of house warming party because we built her castle this afternoon.”

Lady Elinor blinked down at him, absorbing that.

“You want to…take my daughter to a dragon’s lair.”

“Mom’s going to be there and Maleficent’s really nice. We’re not in any danger, I just thought that Merida might like to spend some time in a castle again.” Henry shrugged innocently but Elinor’s arched eyebrow told him that she didn’t believe it for a second.

“Come ooon, mum! It’ll be fun and, if Henry says that Maleficent’s okay, she cannae be that bad.”

Elinor’s expression clearly said that she didn’t think Henry’s judgement on what was good or bad could really be trusted and she folded her arms over her chest.

“The Queen will be there and she’s already looked after me, even when I was bein’ a brat. She didn’t have to. She won’t let anythin’ happen tae me and she wouldnae take Henry if she thought it was dangerous either.” Merida tried again.

Elinor’s scowl deepened. She obviously didn’t think much of Regina’s judgement when it came to what was and what was not a dangerous situation. She huffed out a deep breath and held out her hand to Henry.

“I take it you have a phone you can contact your mother on.”

“For sure.” Henry reluctantly released Merida’s hand so that he could dig into his pocket for his cell, he unlocked it and scrolled through the memory, calling his mom and then handing the phone to Elinor.

Elinor waited patiently for the call to be picked up.

“Hello. It’s not Henry, it’s lady Elinor, aye, he’s fine.” She turned away to continue the conversation without sensitive ears listening in.

“You know, if we make a break for it now, she’ll probably never catch us.” Emma offered to the two kids and they both seemed to consider it before Merida frowned and her shoulder’s slumped.

“No. She’d just chase us and then peel yer car open like a can o’ beans.” At Emma’s raised eyebrows, Merida shrugged and continued. “Mum can turn into a bear.”

“Of course she can.” Emma nodded and then hummed, mulling it over. “Can you?”

“I…” Merida opened her mouth and then clipped it closed. “Ye ken, I’ve never tried.”

“Oh. Well. That’s super.” Emma pressed her lips together in a somewhat alarmed smile and looked over at Henry.

He seemed utterly enchanted by this news and she scowled a little at that.

They were going to have to have a talk.

“You’d be a red curly bear.” Henry smirked at Merida and she grinned.

“Like a giant poodle!” Merida spread her fingers wide and beamed at him. “Do ye think yer mum can tell me if I can?!”

“Uh…maybe. If not her then Maleficent can.” He shrugged. “Between the two of them, I don’t think there’s much they can’t do.”

“I spoke with the Queen.” Elinor joined them again and Emma blinked.

She still wasn’t used to Regina being referred to as that. She’d always just been Regina to Emma and that had been _plenty_ to deal with. Now she had the whole royal nine yards to deal with too. Come to think of it, she had that to deal with when it came to her parents as well.

Emma shied away from that and focussed on the conversation again.

“She told me that if anyone is likely to be eaten, it’s you.” Elinor looked over at Emma. “Is this true?”

“Well, of any of us, I think I’m the one that most recently screwed her over.” Emma hunched her shoulders in a shrug. She waved vaguely at her neck. “Sword in the neck, that kind of thing.”

“And, you can turn into a dragon as well?” Elinor’s voice was devoid of inflection. Emma honestly couldn’t tell what answer the other woman wanted to hear.

“Not exactly. Regina was the one to show me how but I don’t know if could do it on command.”

Elinor nodded and looked down at Merida and Henry once more. She focussed on Henry.

“Daniel shall be there?”

“Yup.” Henry nodded. “And Ruby, so if anything goes South –which it won’t- we could get out of there real quick even if mom couldn’t teleport us. Which she can.”

Elinor heaved out a sigh and Merida jumped up and punched the air.

“Yes!”

“There are conditions!” Elinor held up a finger. “You call me when you get there and when you’re leaving and you should be back no later than nine.”

“Eleven!” Merida bargained and earned herself a scowl.

“Ten.”

“Half ten?” Merida pushed it and nodded quickly when her mother scowled. “Ten it is.”

“Eleven!” Elinor scoffed. “Warrior sons of Queens might not have to be in school because of suspensions but _you_ do.” She nodded sharply and then swept away with a swish of her long skirts.

Henry stiffened, his eyes going wide, and slowly turned to look up at Emma.

“Suspensions? You’re suspended from school?!”

“Heh, it’s a long story.” Henry laughed nervously.

“Tell it in the car!” Merida grabbed Henry’s hand again and hauled him towards the door before Emma could get another word in edgewise.

Henry and Merida hurried through the bar, waving to Eugene and (smugly on Henry’s part) Galen, and burst out into the car lot. They hurried to the distinctive black Classic Mercedes and piled into the back seats.

Emma started before she’d even buckled herself in.

“He’s suspended from school?!”

Regina blinked at the sudden yowl of outrage from her somewhat unwanted passenger and twisted in the driver’s seat in order to look back at Emma. She frowned a little and then looked at Henry with an arched brow.

“Elinor didn’t know that Emma didn’t know.” Henry spread his hands helplessly.

“What does everyone know but me?!”

“Lots of things.”

Emma’s jaw rocked to the side and she fumed a breath out through her nose.

“Henry is suspended from school.” Regina answered and turned back to face front, turning the key in the ignition and bringing the engine to rumbling life.

“I figured as much!” Emma forcibly calmed herself with a seething breath and then turned to buckle herself in. She gathered her words and tried again. “Somebody –I don’t care who- tell me how he got suspended.”

Emma was treated to a resounding silence from all occupants of the car and it was Daniel that finally twisted around the passenger seat to look back at her.

“Henry was defending Regina. It devolved, the spineless school discipline system here took the bully’s side and Henry was suspended. It’s only for another week or so and then a week after that they’re off for the summer. Things have been winding down academically for a while now and Henry has been getting his notes from classmates in order to keep up. As far as I can tell, he’s not missing much either. Henry is far beyond what he’s being taught in his year anyway.”

“Alright, I’ll buy that people had a few things to say about Regina when the curse broke but _what_ did you do in order to get suspended?”

“I just…got in a fight.” Henry’s mouth twisted and he looked up at Emma in his best ‘totally not my fault’ expression.

“With four other lads.” Merida leaned around Henry to look at Emma, her voice filled with pride. “Twice his size.”

“Four…!” Emma cut herself off sharply and then hauled in a deep breath. She looked down at Henry and then studied him more closely. “Four? There’s not a scratch on you. When did this happen?”

“Last week.” Henry shrugged. “And Mister Gold healed everything when he healed the burns on my arms that I got from going into the dream world to speak to Princess Aurora. That’s why mom went under the sleeping curse, so I wouldn’t get hurt anymore. And it wasn’t that bad anyway. I just got a split lip, a fight bite and cracked ribs. I only needed a couple of stitches.” He ticked his injuries off on his fingers and missed the hunched shoulders and the wince Regina gave when Henry strayed into the realm of too much information.

Regina, personally, would have just left it at ‘got in a fight’.

“ _Just_ cracked ribs?!” Emma squeaked.

“You should see the other guys.” Henry tried to nervously smile and make it a joke but, judging by the way Emma was staring at him, she wasn’t buying it. He tried a different truth. “Hey, I get you’re mad and you don’t wanna see me hurt, but my life is just like that sometimes. You can’t change it so you should probably just get over it. I didn’t lie to you about it, I told you when you asked, and –if the same thing happened again- I’d do it all over again if I had to. _Nobody_ talks about my mom like that.”

Emma thumped back in her seat and looked out the window at the scenery passing by. They were leaving the town and heading up into the hills to Mal’s place. Wherever the hell that was.

The tension in the car settled into a low simmer for a few moments before Emma broke the silence again. She turned to look at Henry.

“Four kids?”

Henry nodded.

“Twice your size?”

He nodded again.

“And you’d do it all over if someone trash talked your mom?”

Henry frowned at the very thought and nodded once more.

Emma watched him for a long moment and then the corner of her mouth lifted in a smirk. She shook her head ruefully.

“Your mother’s son.”

“Which one?” Henry tilted his head and Emma sighed.

“Both of us.”

Henry beamed at her

 

**_Not Far From Mal’s Place…_ **

 

“Why do I get the feeling we’re taking the long way round?” Emma tramped along behind Regina and Daniel and hoisted the small barrel of cider she’d been entrusted to carry higher over her shoulder.

“There is no shortcut to Mal’s place. This is done intentionally. She doesn’t like visitors.” Regina glanced back over her shoulder to see Emma. “We’ve only been walking twenty minutes.”

“ _You’re_ not carrying anything.” Emma huffed and shifted the barrel uncomfortably again.

It wasn’t that it was so heavy, just that it was awkward to carry.

“I’m carrying the conversation, that is quite enough.” Regina said archly and Daniel just laughed.

He was carrying a duffel bag that was filled with all manner of goodies –including several dishes of lasagne that Emma had helped to make earlier- with no seeming effort at all. He strolled along beside Regina, clasping her hand lightly and watching the children play.

Merida and Henry were running around at top speed, laughing and play fighting with sticks, singing a song about something called Moredoo and generally acting like children.

That, at least, made Emma smile. She’d never really seen Henry act like a kid before. Or have a friend.

She was glad he hadn’t lost out on either.

Still, Emma narrowed her eyes a little at Regina and the older woman heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes.

“Henry!” She called to her son and the boy slithered to a halt on dirt track that presumably led to Maleficent’s castle.

“Yeah?” Henry was a little breathless.

“Emma is having trouble carrying the barrel, why don’t you help her?”

“Oh.” Henry frowned a moment and then brightened considerably. “Okay!”

Henry, adorably, sheathed his stick sword in the loop of his sweater tied around his hips and bounded over to Emma. He grinned up at her and held his hands out for the barrel.

“It’s too heavy for you, kid.” Emma hefted it higher under her arm and shot a glare at Regina, even if she wasn’t paying attention anymore and was keeping a weather eye on Merida.

“No, it’s not, gimme.” Henry held out his hands and stood in front of her so she couldn’t go anywhere.

“You’re half my size, it’s gonna be too heavy.”

“First of all, I’m three quarters your size and, second of all, _I’m_ the one that spent all morning learning how to make things lighter. So; gimme.”

Emma frowned and warily held the barrel out to him.

Henry grinned and clapped his hands over it. His eyes sparked and she felt something simmer from him with a sound like pebbles pattering over a hill. It was almost like rainfall, in fact. Henry focussed intently on the barrel for a moment and, when he released it, Emma squeaked when it suddenly had to grab onto it to keep it from floating away.

“There you go!” Henry grinned at her and Emma’s brows rose. She smiled down at him.

“Pretty cool, kid.”

“I know, right!” Henry laughed excitedly and then drew his stick sword and took off running without another word to her.

Emma watched him go, a little bemused and slung her arm around the cider barrel again. Like that, it was much easier to carry, and she easily caught up with Regina and Daniel to walk level with them.

“He learned all that this morning?”

“He learned that, a tracking spell, a spell to mould granite like clay and Mal attempted to teach him how to breathe fire but I’m almost certain I interrupted before he could learn the entire incantation.”

“Oh.” Emma nodded and bit her lip. “Sounds like he’s picking it up really fast.”

“Henry is clever and stubborn. Two prime skills when it comes to magic.” Regina nodded, smirking, pride plain in her voice.

“That’s…good.” Emma bit her lip and caught the cider barrel when it tried to float away again.

Daniel cleared his throat.

Regina looked up at him and frowned when he raised his eyebrows at her. She shook her head a little and he heaved a sigh. He looked at Emma, her head ducked watching her feet on the road, and then back to Regina. She followed his gaze and then looked back to him and shrugged.

He rolled his eyes and pulled his hand from her, slowing to a halt on the path. Regina stopped too, wondering what was going on more than anything else. Daniel heaved his arms from the backpack and handed it to her.

“Carry this if you’re not going to carry the conversation.” He thrust the backpack into her hands and she was staggered back by the weight of it until she crashed into Emma. He turned away from her and clapped his hands to get Merida and Henry’s attention. “Right! Kids! Who wants to learn how to dislocate someone’s shoulder?!”

“Me!”

“I do! I do!”

Regina, holding the backpack by its straps despite its weight watched him go. Completely nonplussed.

“What did you do?” Emma looked at Daniel laughing and joking with Merida with Henry giggling under one arm.

Regina leaned over to Emma, a slight frown on her face.

“You mean…you don’t know either?”

Emma did a double take at her and then a chuckle burst from her.

Regina’s frown deepened, she turned to Emma and planted a hand on her hip.

“I thought bounty hunters were observant?”

“Well…I thought we’d never go to dinner together so I guess it’s surprises all round.”

Regina blinked at her and then slung the backpack over her shoulder, she started up the path again and Emma fell into step with her.

They walked in silence for a few steps and Emma cleared her throat, opening her mouth and looking up to speak but Regina beat her to it.

“Daniel put me up to this.” Regina turned to look her in the eye, her jaw rocked to the side. “He said that you needed somewhere to stay and I was wholly against it.”

Emma’s mouth clipped closed and her eyes dropped to the ground.

She actually ground to a halt when Regina’s fingers took her chin and lifted her head so she had to meet her gaze. She was subjected to the most intense and dissecting look she’d ever undergone for so long that her eyes began to water. Then Regina spoke.

“ _Never_ look down. Never.” She dropped her hand. “When you’ve lost everything, when there’s _nothing_ else is left, when you think you’ll die from it, you hold your head up. You hold your head up and you keep going.” She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to continue. “I do not have the monopoly on loss, Miss…Emma. For what it’s worth, I am sorry for what you lost. For what I robbed you of. All I had was…all I could _do_ was hold my head up.”

“And that…led to…driving my parents to send me away?”

“It led to a great many things.” Regina looked away, scanning the trees around them. She looked back to Emma only when the younger woman spoke tentatively.

“It wasn’t you that sent me through that door. They could have…shit, they could have _found_ a way.” Emma pressed her lips together and shrugged. “You can’t lay the blame for everything at your feet, Regina. Especially since you wouldn’t want to scuff those shoes. They’ve gotta cost more than my car.”

“Don’t you _ever_ compare that bastardised travesty of motor engineering to my heels. Each pair is a confection of hand stitched Italian leather, Pythagorean Theorem and sheer flamboyance.” Regina sniffed in disdain and turned back to their hike up the hill.

Emma chuckled and bopped the barrel of cider along with little shoves of her hand. She frowned and looked over at Regina.

“Did you put the same spell on that?” She nodded to the backpack.

“Hmm? Oh, no.” Regina shook her head. “It’s not that heavy.”

“I’m pretty sure that it weighs more than you do.” Emma frowned at the backpack that would also be bigger than Regina in volume if not height (those high heels were tricksy beasts).

“I’m stronger than I look.” Regina grinned. “Perks of an immortal constitution.”

“Immortal?” Emma frowned.

“Those of us with a certain magical don’t really age, dear.”

Emma mulled that over a moment and her brows rose.

“Wait, you said I was pretty powerful, does that mean…?”

“In all likelihood, yes, you shall cease to age once you reach your physical prime.” Regina raked her with a glance. “Hmm, you might even begin to look younger soon.”

“Hey!” Emma swatted her on the arm and her eyes went wide when she realised what she’d just done and –more importantly- who to.

Regina laughed, at her expression more than anything else.

“Wait.” Emma ground to a halt and dragged Regina around to look at her with a hand on that same arm. “What about Henry? If you and me are gonna live forever then…”

“Emma.” Regina’s voice cut seamlessly through her panic. “Do you really think I would stay in this world without my child at my side? I’ve buried too many people. I won’t lose him too.”

“But that must mean that…he’s _that_ powerful?”

“If not now, then in the future. He may grow to surpass even me.” Regina smiled softly as if nothing would please her more. “He is learning so quickly.”

They walked together for a few steps more before Emma summoned the courage to ask the question that had been plaguing her all afternoon. Regina smirked. About time.

“Could…you teach me?”

“Magic?”

“Yeah. I mean, I only want to be able to do one spell.”

“Oh?”

Emma was interrupted by a cacophonous boom of wings and a dark shadow swooping over them. Mal nearly bowled them over with the downdraft of her passing and Emma’s eyes lit up when she saw the huge drake spiral down towards the ground, green magic pluming from her in streamers and waves until she disappeared into a cloud of it and –when she reappeared- she stood in her statuesque human form.

“That.” Emma smiled. “I want to be able to do that.”

Regina arched an eyebrow and looked over at Emma, surprised at the wonder and awe in the younger woman’s face but also the admiration. Regina studied Emma for a long moment and the Sheriff seemed to feel her gaze and turned to look back at her. Her face fell.

“You don’t think I can do it. You think I’m a moron.”

“No.” Regina told her sharply and then softened her tone. “I think your pare…I think your _mother_ is a moron. I was simply surprised that you only wanted to learn one spell. Though I do have to admit…turning into a dragon is one _hell_ of a spell.”

“Can you do it? Can you teach me?”

“I can certainly try, though it won’t be easy.” She tried to direct a little realism when Emma’s face lit up. “Shape-shifting…it took me years to master. It is _very_ complex.”

“If I did it before, I can do it again.”

Regina smirked.

And there was that stubborn streak that ran clean through Emma and straight to Henry. Regina nodded and Emma looked like she was strongly resisting the urge to do a ‘happy dance’ or whatever it was that Henry called his little hip thrusting, fist pumping jig whenever he won a game of checkers against her.

He still had no idea that she let him win every single time but she saw no reason to dent his confidence. He was going to need it if he planned on continuing his magical lessons.

Emma was right, Henry really was a son to both of them.

And that didn’t alarm her as it once would have at all.

 

**_Into the Castle…_ **

 

“Welcome!” Mal hurled open the front doors of the castle and her voice echoed at least twice in the cavernous space of the hall beyond.

The place was HUGE. Massive vaulted ceilings that might have been more at home in a cathedral, glass windows longer than the library tower in town was tall speckled multi-coloured lights on the shining obsidian floors. Sculpted pillars held up the arching ceiling painted with constellations from this world and the world of the Enchanted Forest, the walls were polished to a high sheen though there were entire monoliths of rough granite left wild amongst the masonry.

It was tailored for a dragon after all and Mal had to have _something_ to strop her claws on.

“Wow! You added in windows? Did you dig up sand for the glass?” Henry bounded into the castle, straight past Mal to gape up at the stained glass that depicted various myths and legends (some of which Maleficent and his mom had personally starred in). “Did you colour them with minerals or magic?”

“Both.” Mal arched a brow, towering over Henry even with no heels on. She raked him with an appraising purple and green glance and then looked over to Regina, tilting her head.

“It turns out that comic books actually make Henry think about _how ‘_ superpowers’ work, not just that they do.”

“Because ‘cause magic’,” Henry lifted his hands and waved them, “isn’t a reason. Ooh! Presents!”

“Henry, you could wait until we’re all in the door.” Regina admonished lightly but she slung the backpack from her shoulder and deposited it gently onto the floor.

“No. No, you may shower me with gifts at any time.” Mal turned to face Regina fully and bared all of her teeth in a smile.

“We each brought something.” Regina assured Mal.

The etiquette of guesthood in the Enchanted Forest, particularly between those of a magical nature, was as complex as it was dangerous. A guest was afforded every courtesy _so long as_ they were a good guest to have. The criteria for courtesies on both sides was 'in-depth' to say the least but it began with gifts. A tithe almost for entering the home of another.

Regina looked expectantly at Emma and the Saviour went wide eyed when she realised that she was supposed to go first. She had kind of hoped to get through this entire dinner without getting within arm’s reach of Mal. Sure, they had spent time as dragons together, but that was when Emma had been a magical tank and not in the shape she had been when she’d done the whole sword-in-neck-beheading-thing.

She cautiously stepped closer to the dragon sorceress, looking for any signs of aggression.

To be frank, all she could see was a ridiculously gorgeous woman in a long silvery dress that had to have been magic made and tailored. It had a halter neck, a plunging neckline to her cleavage, it was nearly backless and –whilst the skirt swept the floor around her- it was slit to the hip on one side. The inner lining was crimson.

That and the sculpted face, the full lips, waves and waves of golden hair that fell to her waist in a sleek torrent that made Emma wish for the magic to be able to pull that off without about nine hours of prep time and a personal stylist and those alien eyes…Emma was feeling a little underdressed and a lot intimidated.

Still, she kept her chin up, swept forward a step and held out the barrel that had been cleansed of any lightening spells to Mal.

“I brought cider for you. I stole it from Regina’s personal stash.” She shrugged even though it was a blatant lie.

Regina had told her –in the sparse advice on etiquette she had doled out- that she had to make it clear to Mal that she had procured the gift herself. For the benefit of that being true, Regina had pointed out the key to the shed where the cider was kept and then told Emma to steal one when she wasn’t looking.

Emma, pride needled at such coddling, had picked the damn lock herself and taken three barrels of cider. She’d brought one here with her but the other two had been secreted about the grounds of the manor to be held ransom at a later date.

Despite the lie, Mal chuckled and accepted the barrel with a casual strength that made Emma think for a moment that it had returned to the helium balloon weight it had been for the road to the castle. Magic sparked behind Mal’s teeth and the barrel disappeared.

Emma scurried back out of reach and decided to stay on the other side of Daniel.

“I brought bread.” Daniel nodded to the pack but didn’t pull it out.

“I made lasagne.” Regina shrugged as if she hadn’t made about half a metric tonne of the damn stuff.

“Laz-an-ya?” Mal wrinkled her nose in confusion and Regina smirked.

“You’re going to love it.”

Mal grunted deep in her throat and Henry, unable to keep it in anymore, bounded forward and held something up to her.

“And I made this!”

Mal jerked back a little when she suddenly had something thrust under her nose but then her eyes widened and her pupils dilated in the manner of cats when mauling is imminent. She made a strange purring sound and lifted both sharp clawed hands to delicately take the string of CD’s that had been glued back to back from the boy. She lifted the chain that Henry had made with string and quite a bit of glue. The shimmers of refracted light from the discs glittered in Mal’s eyes and a slow smile curled her lips.

“Thank you.” She tapped at a disc, sending it and all the others spinning so they sparkled further and she grinned. It slipped from her face when another punier pinkling appeared before her. The guest of her guests.

That was a lot of red hair and the smell –oh so faint- of…bear?

“I didnae know we had tae bring gifts,” Merida began a little nervously and Mal opened her mouth to tell her there was no need as she was a guest of Regina’s and just along for the ride as it were, but the girl was ahead of her, “but I have this.”

Mal’s assurances as to not needing anything from the girl died on her tongue when the little thing held up something dangling on a chain that was silver, intricately crafted and –most importantly- _shiny_.

Mal’s clawed hand unfolded and Merida bravely put the pendant she had removed from around her neck into the dragon’s palm.

Mal lifted the necklace and studied it. A round charm with three bears running to one another in a fine and Celtic design. The shimmer in her eyes dimmed a little when she realised something.

“This is dear to you.”

Merida hunched a shoulder in a shrug.

“I cannot accept.” Mal turned her hand, catching the necklace by the chain so that it dangled from her fingers. “Gifts are meant to be given, not stolen.”

“I should have known to bring one. I didnae because I was excited to be here.” Merida hunched her shoulders. “Mum will understand.”

“This was your mother’s? Then I certainly cannot…”

“Tell ye what, you keep it until ye come tae dinner at mine and then ye can give it back to me.” Merida took the necklace from the dragon and reached up expectantly.

Mal glanced up at the rest of the group, not sure what the girl wanted, and Regina caught her eye. She ducked a little and Mal, in response, bowed at the waist.

Merida, showing not a trace of fear, reached up behind Mal’s neck and clasped the chain of the necklace for her. She straightened the chain, ensuring it hung just so, and then rocked back onto the flats of her feet. She smiled and nodded her head and then Mal straightened up.

“So your gift is…a promise?”

“That we’ll have ye round for dinner? Oh, aye.” Merida nodded.

Mal’s head cocked in an entirely avian manner and the nails of one hand clacked against the shining chain that Henry had given her. She hummed deep in her throat and then shook it off.

“Well, thank you all.” She looked over them, smiling, and nodded. “You are wonderful guests and it is now my time to be the host. This way.”

The whole party trooped deeper into the castle and Regina trotted a couple of steps so she overtook the rest and walked shoulder to shoulder with Mal.

“So, is this everyone?” She draped her hands behind her back and asked with practiced innocence.

“No.” Mal rolled her eyes. “Your darling little sister accepted my invitation also. Though only after I mentioned that you would be here. I do not think she needs reassurances as to my benevolence to her. They only seem to alarm her further.”    

“Really?” Regina frowned. “That’s odd. You’ll just have to try harder. She really is lovely once you get to know her, I’m sure that you and she will be good friends. As soon as she gets over the fear of course.”

“Nobody ‘gets over’ their fear of me, Gina. Once they feel it, it is in their bones and they never…they don’t grow out of it. No matter what I try.” Mal draped her shiny present from Henry over her shoulder, reluctant to give up the first piece of her new hoard, and looked away from Regina.

Her best friend bumped her shoulder against hers and Mal shook her head sharply.

“This might be a new world, Gina, but the people are still the same. They ran from me on the street and they forever will.”

“You’re right, it is a different world but the people are not _exactly_ the same and Ruby’s more than familiar with people being afraid of her. She’s skittish, of course she is, her wolf is screaming at her, but she’s practiced at keeping it under control. I want you two to be together.”

“Together?!” Mal whipped her head around to stare.

“Of course, she’s my sister and you’re my best friend, why wouldn’t I want my friends and family together?” Regina frowned a little. “You might hoard shiny things, gecko, but I hoard family and I guard them jealously.”

Mal frowned at her and Regina just grinned until Daniel’s hand wrapped around her arm and he bodily hauled her backwards (drawing an erudite response from her, something along the lines of ‘gack!’) so she walked level with him. He leaned down to speak in her ear.

“Stop meddling.” His teeth raked her ear in soft warning and she only smirked.

“Can’t.”

“I’ll bet you can.”

“Fine. I won’t. You’ll understand later, now, let me continue to make nice.”  Regina wriggled from his hold and hurried to catch up with Mal again.

“Ruby’s not afraid of you, simply skittish. The predator prey dynamic is a lot louder in her head. She’s an apex predator and all of a sudden she’s come across someone that might eat her in two bites if she was of a mind to.”

“I would _never- -!”_ Mal rounded on Regina but the sorceress was already speaking over her in a stunningly dangerous move that she only got away with because they were such fast friends.

“Now, now, _I_ know that and _you_ know that and even Ruby knows that…but the wolf is harder to convince. It’s just…going to take a while. Hang around her long enough and show you’re not a threat and it’ll all work out.”

Mal narrowed her eyes, not convinced.

“So I should just let her sniff my claws, give her a treat, pet her and all shall be well?” Mal snorted and smoke plumed in the air. “I have been down this road before. It never ends well.”

“Ruby is NOT afraid of you.” Regina reaffirmed. “She is _wary_ there is a difference.”

“Negligible.” Mal snapped with a clip of her teeth.

“Gesundheit.” Regina grinned at her and Mal just frowned, not understanding the reference. Regina pressed her lips together and frowned, a slow breath huffing through her nose. “Fine, so you don’t like Ruby, but I’d appreciate it if…”

“It’s not that I don’t like her!” Mal rounded on Regina so quickly that her skirts swirled over the floor with a rasping sound like scales.

The entire group ground to a halt and fell silent from their oohing and aahing over the castle and Regina didn’t look overly impressed despite the flash in Mal’s eyes and the magic sparking behind her teeth.

“Henry,” Regina spoke to her son without looking away from Mal, “I believe you know where the dining room is. Why don’t you show Merida, Daniel and Emma?”

“Uh, sure.” Henry reached out blindly, gripping Merida’s hand and hauling her away before the curious princess could reach up into Mal’s mouth and see where the magic was coming from.

Mal fumed silently, watching them go, smoke pluming from her nose and a truly terrifying scowl on her face.

Well, terrifying if you weren’t a sorceress intent on giving things a little…nudge.

“As I was saying; Ruby’s my sister, please try and stow your revulsion for the human form for long enough to have a pleasant dinner…”

“I do not revile her!” Mal stepped closer to Regina, irritated that the smaller woman’s heels did not give her the towering loom that she enjoyed over most people. “She is…”

“Not. Aurora.” Regina spoke quietly but with no less conviction. Daniel would be proud. “I _know_ her, Mal. Almost as well as I know you and she will never treat you so callously. She’s been on the receiving end of the monster label and she is in sore need of friends that she just cannot hurt. She is a good person.”

“You and I both know that good people are the worst for it.” Mal growled but not with the same vehemence she had summoned moments prior.

“She’s terrified of herself, Mal. She never lets go. Even you and I can relax within our own skin but she can’t. She hasn’t slept well since the curse ended because there’s always that niggling fear that she’s going to wake up in the wrong shape and hurt the people she loves.”

Mal snorted and turned away, in no mood to hear these well-crafted and –frankly- entirely too convincing arguments towards letting the little wolf under her skin. The last time Mal had trusted someone with her love…it would have been kinder to have beheaded her as Emma had done.

She coughed a surprised sound when Regina’s hand manacled around her wrist and spun her wildly back to face her.

“Don’t walk away from me!” Regina snarled, showing some of her old spines. Dragons weren’t the only ones with claws on their talons and fire on their tongues. “You have no idea what it is like! I spend a fraction of my time as a werewolf and it is ALWAYS there. That ache in the teeth, that bone burning desire to find a likely victim and sink the ivory in your mouth right into the gumline. Not to eat, never to eat, eating’s easy. You can _sate_ hunger. No, this burns, this starves. It’s a lust, it’s carnal, to reproduce. To make more of your kind. So you wouldn’t run alone anymore, so your pack is strong, so you can sing to the moon again. One bite, that’s all it would take, one delicious bite and you’d have another. A brother or a sister, a shoulder friend, as fast and as strong and as _unbreakable_ as you are.”

Regina let out a sudden breath, blinking and shaking her head sharply to try and clear the echo of that driving hunger, that sweet ache in her teeth. It was all muddled in with more human drives and all she wanted in that moment was to go and find Daniel and sink her teeth into him as he sank into her. She closed her eyes and huffed out a slow breath again.

“And it’s like that for her every day, Mal. Every. Single. Day.” Regina finally opened her eyes and looked at her dearest friend again. “An insatiable hunger that she just can’t feed because –if she does- then she really is a monster. She needs people like us. She needs people she can’t turn. She needs people she can trust herself around.”

Mal swallowed audibly and looked away from Regina. She toyed with the shining CD chain in her hands, scoring ancient draconian lettering into their glittering surface in a manner that would refract the light even further when it hit them. It took her a moment to realise that she had sketched Ruby’s name into one of them. She looked sharply up at Regina and found herself under intense scrutiny.

“Please, Mal. Do this for me. Ruby has given so much to me. She’s looked past what I was to see what I am and she can do that for you too. She _will_ do that for you too. She’s one of the most intuitive people I’ve ever met. She would be your friend if you’d but let her.”

Mal’s jaw clenched so hard it clicked and she simmered in thought for a long moment. She scowled at Regina and the sorceress knew she had won.

“Fine. Fine. She may…I will try. For you. As a _favour_.”

“There are no favours between friends.”

“I’ll remember that the next time you come to me for a curse.” Mal snorted and stiffened when a thunderous knock echoed throughout the chamber.

“I believe that’s your final guest.” Regina prompted when Mal just stared at the door. “Maybe you should let her in?”

Mal shot her a look and then started across the huge hall to open the doors with a flick of her wrist and a spark of magic from behind her teeth.

Regina watched her go and then let the truly _wicked_ smile she had been holding in spread across her mouth.

She had meant everything she had said, of course. Every word of it. Ruby truly did need friends she could relax around and she did desire more pack-mates with the forceful melancholy of lone wolves everywhere but…she was coping. She was happy –in the day with company- but Regina knew the nights had to plague her.

Still, truth or not, one thing remained the same.

This was going to be _fun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should point out that my Mal is not at all like the show's Mal (do not get me STARTED on my rage at canon right now). This was written...wow, this was written about two years ago now. Long before anyone thought of bringing her back at ABC. 
> 
> My Mal is a dragon that takes the form of a sorceress, not the other way around. She no longer has her staff because Regina broke it and as such has no way to really channel her magic in her human form other than to breathe it as she would as a dragon. That's why it sparks behind her teeth. 
> 
> Anyway, thought I'd update since y'all are going a bit nutty for your EiS crack fix. Another update shall follow tonight but after my dinner. 
> 
> I'm starving. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed :D


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43 – Run**

**_The Castle…_ **

 

Regina sipped her wine and tried not to fidget.

Gods damn it, she was really beginning to regret bringing up the hungering bite of werewolves. Especially since that hunger had to go somewhere and apparently eating her weight in lasagne just wasn’t cutting it. She uncrossed her legs and then switched one leg over the other. Her foot bounced, kicking idly, and she stared at nothing trying to ignore the blood pounding in her veins.

She was a little disappointed that the dinner had gone so well. Despite Mal having been more than a little out of practice at hosting human guests, she had managed them all with aplomb and more than a little impressive magic.

 Mal had grown a long granite table out of the floor just an hour ago to seat her guests on chairs grown from cracks in the floor. Real trees, enchanted to grow at an accelerated rate into comfortable natural thrones with leaves and blossom fanning over their heads. Dinner had been roasted venison basted in a ridiculous amount of butter. An entire stag even now turning on a spit before the massive fire in the equally huge hearth. Fruits from the tree chairs were arranged in platters across the table alongside the lasagne (which Mal _did_ adore), homemade bread and –Mal’s dangerous sense of humour showing- a roast swan arranged artfully right in front of Emma.

So there was plenty of roast going on, dragons were sort of a one-trick reptile when it came to the culinary arts, but it was offset by the hum of lively conversation going on around her and there was plenty of wine to try and sedate her screaming sex drive. Though –if she kept up her rate of imbibing- her inhibitions might desert her entirely and she’d be crawling across the table into Daniel’s lap before she even knew what she was about.

Regina clunked her goblet of wine onto the table and looked up when Daniel tilted his head at her subtly.

She smiled, shaking her head just as minutely in an attempt to show that she was fine even if she wasn’t, and tried to tune into the conversation going on around her.

“So, mom really threw all the spears at your pony and stuff?” Henry bit into a venison sandwich layered with lasagne and looked up at Mal with brows raised.

She sat at one end of the table with Ruby on her right and Emma on her left. Then Henry and Merida opposite one another, George next to Henry (having joined them late and exhibiting such impeccable manners that he’d been allowed to sit at the table). He sat opposite Daniel and Regina at the other end of the table.

“He was not a pony, he was a unicorn, and –yes- she really did.” Mal cast a sideways glance at Regina who arched a brow and shrugged.

“It’s your own fault. You taught me to go for the jugular yourself.”

“Quite.” Mal lifted her goblet of wine and sipped. Her eyes tracked over Regina, lingering at her throat and then she _smirked_.

Regina’s eyes narrowed and then her jaw clenched when she realised something.

Mal was doing this on _purpose._

Dragon pheromones were a powerful thing. They tended to tangle around human –and other prey- senses and cause hysterical fear making them easier to devour without all that pesky sword and stabby nonsense.

There were –of course- a plethora of said pheromones to choose from and more than a few of them with a hard line connection to that hindbrain part of the human physique that drove the vast majority of the population to think about sex about every thirty seconds a day. For someone with a high sex drive as it was –say, Regina- it was nigh unto torture to have everything revved up and raring to go with no opportunity to do so.

Glancing around the table, Regina was comforted somewhat to find that none of the rest of the guests had been subjected to such a torture and she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Mal could summon storms to her command, it wasn’t like she wouldn’t be able to direct a little breeze here and there to pour all those nasty little chemicals straight down Regina’s throat like spiked punch.

“So, what happened to him?”

Mal pulled her gaze from Regina’s and turned her attention back to Henry.

“The little unicorn, where did he go?”

“He was lost when the curse was cast.” Mal’s gaze dropped to her plate for only a moment before she found a smile from somewhere. “Just as well, really, it would not be fair to him to be trapped in this drab little world. He was a magical beast and he deserved to run free with his own kin.”

“Aren’t you worried about him? He was only little.”

Mal propped her elbows on the table, lacing her fingers to him, and frowned when she didn’t understand the question.

“Unicorns back home aren’t like the colourful little ponies with stumpy little horns on their heads that this world seems to think they were.” Daniel explained. “Each one of them was a warrior beast, no matter how small, and even Maleficent’s pygmy pet would quite easily be able to fell a bull elephant.”

“Say whaaa?!” Henry gaped at him. “No. WAY!”

“Yes way.” Daniel chuckled. “Unicorns can move so quickly that the human eye cannot track them. They seem to disappear and then reappear. Their horns are razor sharp and drill wounds rather than slice them. There is no stronger material in the Enchanted Forest other than diamonds and perhaps a dragon’s fangs.” Daniel nodded to Mal.

“That is so unbelievably cool.” Henry murmured.

“He wasn’t a pygmy.” Mal corrected mildly. “The collar he wore was cursed to keep him stunted. He came to me to try and break it. We became friends as I searched for a way to free him of it. I will admit that –after I developed such an affection for him- I did not try very hard to find such a cure at all.”

Mal sat back in her chair and shrugged.

“His name was Cobalt and I miss him.” The admission seemed to catch even her by surprise and she shook it off quickly. “Still, I imagine he’s having a grand time without me anyway. He was always meant for the forest and not stone walls. The polished floors were hell with his hooves. He could never get a grip.”

“Mebbe we could find a way to bring him over here or send ye back tae the Enchanted Forest.” Merida leaned forward so she could see Mal better. “George can howl portals. He’s never done one more than a few metres, but he could probably managed it with the help o’ yer magic.”

George yipped, his tail thumping against his chair in a wag and he nodded his head.

“I could help too.” Henry volunteered. “I don’t have much magic compared to you guys,” he glanced around the table at his mom, Mal and Emma, “but I can still try.”

“Why?” Mal frowned.

“Why not?” Henry hunched his shoulders in a shrug. “Don’t you want to see him again?”

“Of course.”

“Then we’ll try and help.” Henry beamed at her as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and Mal just studied him as if he was an entirely new species she had never come across before.

Since she was so old she’d lost count (it was all academic after two thousand anyway) that was quite something.

“But… _why?_ ” Mal’s curiosity would not be sated so easily with an answer she couldn’t understand.

“Just say thank you.” Regina took pity on Mal and offered some advice. “Say thank you and prepare yourself for Operation…?” She looked at Henry expectantly.

“Hmm.” He thought it over, unprepared for being put on the spot for a cool operation name. You couldn’t force these things, they had to happen naturally.

“Kingfisher!” Merida clapped her hands down onto the table. “Because ye’ll have to dart into the Enchanted Forest, pick Cobalt up, then swoop straight back through again. Like a kingfisher after a wee fish.”

“Yeah! Kingfisher. Operation Kingfisher.” Henry nodded, decided. “We can start tomorrow if you like.”

“Why would I want to come back?” Mal looked between them and was further confused when both children and –in fact- the entire table looked surprised and crestfallen simultaneously at the question. She shrugged. “This world is no place for someone like me. My territories in the Enchanted Forest were nearly a dozen times the size of the fiefdom of Storybrooke. I had a freedom there that I will never have here. I have been trapped in one form or another for long enough, I have no desire to switch from one cage to another slightly larger one.”

Regina did not miss the way Ruby’s eyes went wide and she stared at nothing, blinking rapidly, her eyes shining.

Regina frowned. How was it even _possible_ for two creatures with senses strong enough to span miles NOT to see what was right in front of them.

“But…don’t you like us?” Henry looked from Mal to his mother and then back again. Mal just gave him that same confused frown and tilt of her head. “We like you.”

“You have known me all of a day.” Mal’s confused frown deepened. She couldn’t claim to have understood humans terribly well, she tended to avoid all but a select few, but she had never –in all her millennia of living- come across a human like Henry.

“So? We still think you’re really cool.”

Mal jerked back as if he’d taken a swipe at her with a baseball bat and then looked suddenly at Ruby.

“Does that mean the same thing coming from him that it does from you?”

“Uh…” Ruby’s eyes went wide when she was so suddenly the focus of everyone’s attention. She glanced at Henry and then shrugged her shoulders and nodded. “Yeah. I guess.”

Mal blinked, caught completely off guard and looked around the table at each one of them. Her claws clacked against the wooden armrest of her living chair and she hummed deep in her throat.

“And you all…feel this way?”

She was met with a chorus of nods in the affirmative by everyone except Emma who yelped when Regina kicked her. Hard. She grimaced, reaching under the table to rub at her shin and nodded hurriedly.

“Oh, for sure, being a dragon is severely cool.” Emma kept nodding and then forced herself to stop. She glared at Regina.

Her only response was to sip from her wine and tilt her head back to study the ceiling with sudden interest.

Mal cocked her head, not sure what to do with that at all and hummed deep in her throat.

“How _odd._ ” She decided after a moment and Regina smirked.

She understood well the confusion of trying to wrap the brain around the notion that someone could _like_ a monster. Even if that monster was somewhat reformed. The confusion only multiplied when it became apparent that this strange madness of _liking_ a villain became a shared affliction. Such mystified thoughts only grew in direct relation as to how many people were willing to spend time in the clutches of such a predator and –if Regina were honest- that incomprehension never really went away. 

“Why is it odd?” Daniel, well versed in talking reformed villains around to seeing that they were in fact likeable, drew Mal’s attention.

“I am a dragon. We do not have friends. We are terrifying and destroy all we come across. We roast our prey before devouring them, sometimes not even bothering to kill them first, and we bleed a land dry of its riches so that we might bed down on a hoard of shining thievery. I fail to see how any of you might find that interesting _or_ delightful.” Mal hunched her shoulders in a shrug.

“But…you do have friends.” Ruby disagreed quietly. “Regina is your best friend. You haven’t destroyed everything you’ve come across at all, you built this castle this afternoon. The only thing I’ve seen you eat has been dead to begin with –if a little rare- and your hoard is made of gifts, nothing stolen at all.”

Mal stared at Ruby like she’d grown a second head. She frowned, definitely not sure where this conversation had gone so wrong and how she’d found herself so deep in the dark over it.

“That and –aside from mom- you’re something we’ve never seen before. A dragon. A _real_ dragon.” Henry joined in. “All my life I wanted to meet a dragon, to see if they were as big and powerful and beautiful as you are and you’re all that and more.” Henry grinned at her. “Sure, you’re scary and you were going to eat mom when you were crazy but you’re better now just like mom got better. Mom built Storybrooke out of second chances. Maybe that’s why you should come back after you find Cobalt.”

Mal looked around the table for a long moment and then scowled. She huffed out a breath through her nose, steaming magic and smoke gouting from her, and more sparked from behind her teeth when she spoke.

“Humans are more confusing than I remember.”

“A-and that’s our cue.”  Regina set her wine down and stood from her chair with a rustle from the branches. “Come along, children. We’d best be getting back before an angry mama bear comes to find us.”

“Mo-om!” Henry nearly whined. “Can’t we stay a _little_ longer? You could teleport us back.”

“I’ve been drinking, Henry. Probably best not to be folding time and space about myself in such a state, hmm?” Regina smiled at him and decided not to add that it would take significantly more than the wine she had drunk in order to get her plastered.

“I’ll be driving then.” Emma stood up and held out her hands for the keys.

Regina glared at her. Ah, she hadn’t thought of that. Emma’s smirk told her that the Saviour had realised that too.

Regina gave real thought to drop kicking her back to her parent’s house. Promises not to send her away or no.

“Fine.” Regina grumbled. “But if you put one _scratch_ on my baby, I’ll have your skin to buff it out.” She dropped the keys into Emma’s hands.

“Noted and filed, Buffalo Bill.” Emma rolled her eyes and turned away to herd the kids towards the front door.

They dawdled over their goodbyes, not really wanting the evening to end and it took Emma scruffing Henry by his shirt and bodily propelling him from the room to get them to shift. She was aware of Regina saying her own goodbyes to Ruby and Mal _insisting_ that Ruby stay to keep Mal company. They were only going because of the children, after all, no point in cutting an evening short.

Emma muscled down her flinch when the familiar clicking gait of a wolf fell into step with her and George looked up at her with a small ‘urrff’ of greeting before passing her to walk shoulder to hip with Henry.

Emma tuned into the conversation between both kids and smiled.

“Do you really think she’s beautiful?”

Henry looked up from scratching George’s thick ruff of fur and frowned a little at Merida.

“Don’t you?”

“Well, I…” Merida floundered for a moment and flushed a little when Henry just frowned in confusion.

“You gotta realise there’s just something _about_ her, right?” Henry tilted his head. “I mean…she’s so unlike anyone else in town. Maybe it’s because you can’t hear magic but it’s like…it’s like this song in my head when I stand close to her. It’s old and it’s, heh, it’s interesting and delightful.” He beamed a smile at Merida and frowned a little when she looked away from him and frowned at the floor.

He twisted to look back at Emma when he heard a slapping sound and saw her palm clapped over her face.

“You okay, Emma?”

“Mosquitos.” Emma gave a lopsided and somehow long suffering sigh and Henry, mollified turned back to Merida.

He was further concerned when he saw that she was walking with her shoulders hunched and her arms folded over her chest.

“Merida? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Came the sullen reply and Henry’s mouth twisted.

“Did I do something?”

“No.” Merida clipped the word at him and Henry looked down when George made a sound.

The wolf walked along with Henry and his ears pinned back and he grumbled a strange sound deep in his throat.

“What?” Henry had no idea what was going on.

George heaved a deeper sigh than Emma had and rolled his eyes, trotting away ahead of his friend and out into the dark of twilight beyond the open front doors.

Henry tried to puzzle it out, replaying the conversation in his head and he slowed a step when he caught on.

“Ooh.” His mouth twisted and he sucked in a breath through his teeth when he realised how that had all sounded and how he might have taken to Merida gushing over Galen. He watched her stride angrily away from him out into the night and then he grinned.

If she was upset, that meant she liked him too.

“Merida! Merida, wait!”

“Whit?!” She rounded on him fiercely at the bottom of the steps leading from the front doors to the courtyard.

“I’m not explaining it very well,” he huffed out a breath of frustration, “it’s like…magic is just…it’s really hard to tell it to someone, you know?”

“Not really.” Merida scowled at him.

“What’s this?” Regina joined Emma in the doorway, frowning when she saw why progress had been halted.

“The kid screwed up. He was going on about how beautiful Maleficent is and…this.” Emma waved at Henry chasing after Merida and slithering to a halt in front of her when she tried to storm away from him.

“Ooh.” Regina’s mouth twisted and she sucked in a breath through her teeth.

 Well, this was going to be a tough one for Henry but she knew better than to interfere. She hung back with Emma, aware of Daniel sidling past them both and walking off down the side of the steps and over the grounds of the castle. Regina’s gaze followed him but then she was drawn back into Henry’s drama by Emma.

“I _knew_ Charm couldn’t be hereditary.” Emma stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Makes me feel a little better about being such a damn klutz.”

“He’ll figure it out.” Regina propped herself up against the doorframe and watched the show.  

“Maybe I could show you?” Henry lifted his hands tentatively and stepped closer to Merida, he smiled softly. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’ll never hurt you, Merida.”

“I’m no’ afraid.” Merida scowled at him and stepped closer to him too, daring him to try and scare her.

Henry smirked and lifted his hands. He gently placed the palms of his hands over her ears, his fingers threading through the wild mane of her hair and he bit his lip in concentration. His gold magic, sparking with purple, shimmered in his eyes and he focussed on what he wanted to do. That roiling feeling in his chest, he pointed it up through his throat into his head and he rifled through the memories of Mal until he found what he wanted.

“I can hear people’s souls now.” Henry murmured to her. “I can hear what they are and…and how they are. This is what Maleficent sounds like.”

Merida jolted when a deep and thrumming sound, like whale song but…ancient, sang through her head. She blinked rapidly when the sound didn’t just seem to sound in her ears but rise up from the ground beneath her and pour into the top of her head. The sound in her feet didn’t come from the ground it came from…it came from the _planet_. The stuff in her head wasn’t in the air it was from the _stars._

“See what I mean? She’s like a tiger or a shark. She’s hella scary, an ultimate killing machine, perfectly evolved. She’s the…the pinnacle of everything. That’s beautiful. It’s something for people like you and me to aim for. Maleficent’s an idea, she’s a wonderful idea, and ideas are meant to be cherished.”

“Oh.” Merida opened her eyes and she was suddenly surprised at how close Henry was. He smiled at her.

“This is what my mom sounds like.”

 Henry conjured another memory, the chiming of his mom’s magic. Bells, hundreds of bells. Deep gonging bells that thundered through the air and soft chiming bells as light as sleigh bells. All of them winding around one another in a symphony of clarion sound. Merida imagined it was like standing in the bell tower of Notre Dame when all of the bells were going at once. A sound that could be heard for miles.

“And Emma.”

 A new sound, water. Like a rushing river and then a bubbling brook. Crashing waves and a thundering waterfall. Oddly musical and somehow vast, like hearing the rippling of a tide pool and somehow knowing that –soon- the tide would wash in and would join up with a much greater and more powerful sound and become something…well, something magical.

“And this is you.”

Merida gasped when she heard what Henry saw in her. She reached up and gripped his wrists, like she was afraid he would pull away and cut her off from the sound of her soul.

Drums. That was her first thought. Deep and pounding, a fast tempo, like a thundering heart or a galloping horse. The beat of wings. Amongst all that there was a reeling note, like a violin or a screaming eagle. It was all wild and untamed and then there was a sense of something larger in there. Something old and powerful. Something waiting to rear up in her.

“What’s that?” Merida pressed his hands harder against his ears, desperately trying to identify the sound, and Henry smiled.

“I _think_ …” He narrowed his eyes and mulled it over to be sure. “I think that’s your bear.”

Merida gasped and laughed and grinned all at the same time. She whooped and jumped up and down, incredibly pleased.  

“I can turn inta a bear! A bear!”

“Well, not yet, maybe soon though.”

“Hah! A _BEAR!_ ”

“Maybe.” Henry laughed and then took her hands in his again. “Do you see what I mean now? Maleficent is a very beautiful lady but I meant more on the inside. Yeah, so she’s tall and blonde and pretty but,” Henry reached up and swept a curl of Merida’s hopelessly wild hair back behind her ear even if there was a torrent more of curls hanging around her face, “my favourite colour is red.”

Merida blinked, flushing almost as red as her hair under her freckles and let herself be numbly turned towards the road.

“Come on, car’s this way.”

Henry led her away and Emma, back on the front steps huffed out a slow sigh through her nose. She could _feel_ Regina’s amused smirk directed her way.

“Alright! Alright. I stand corrected. The kid’s got charm coming out the wazoo. It must skip a generation.” She folded her arms over her chest and looked narrowly at Regina. “We’re going to have to have a talk.”

“He’s only eleven.”

“Nearly twelve.”

“So then he’ll be _twelve_.” Regina gusted a sigh. “We’ve got plenty of time left before you have to give him The Talk. That was perfectly innocent. Yes, I do believe he’s half in love with her already but…I blame your family for that.”

“Hey, _you’re_ the one that grew up from a kid with your true love. My parents didn’t _find_ each other until they were grown ass adults. If you want to blame anyone for animal magnetism, it’s gotta be you.” Emma elbowed her and Regina felt nettled when she could think of no witty one liner for that. “Speaking of, where’d Daniel go?”

“He’s about thirty yards that way, beyond the treeline.” Regina jerked her head in the direction of the setting sun.

“Alright,” Emma frowned, “is that a True Love thing or a sorceress supreme thing?”

Regina blinked languidly at her.

“Yes.”

“Helpful as ever.” Emma grumbled. “I hope you don’t teach magic this way.”

“Every student is different. I’m sure we’ll find a method that motivates you.”

“I’m pretty sure you meant that to sound ominous and creepy so I’m not going to rise to the bait. I’m headed after the pintsize lovebirds and I assume that the raptor sized lovebirds will follow presently?”

“Hmm, best not. Merida needs to get back to the bar and I don’t know what I’ve done this time either.” Regina turned to face the direction Daniel had wandered off in. She couldn’t feel annoyance from him per se but…there was definitely frustration. “Might have been all the meddling.”

“Meddling?”

“I’m trying not to be evil but that does not mean that I can’t be meddlesome or pester people or be exasperating or…whatever else comes into my head aside from murder and mayhem.” Regina huffed out a breath and smirked. “Alright, murder and torture, I reserve the right to cause mayhem whenever I damn well please.”

“ _There’s_ the Regina I know.” Emma smirked and Regina turned back to look at her for a long moment. “What?”

“We do know one another…don’t we.”

“Uh…yeah.” Emma looked a little confused. “Bar the past month, we’ve been pretty wrapped up in one another’s business for almost a year. Admittedly not in a _good_ way but, y’know, in a…familiar way?”

“Hmm.” Regina frowned.

“Hmm what?” Emma prodded when it seemed like she was going to leave it at that.

“I told Daniel that I wasn’t adopting another orphan.” Regina’s jaw rocked to the side and she studied Emma carefully. “It just occurred to me that I might have done that already.”

“I…” Emma gaped at her but Regina waved her away.

“Take the children home, Emma. Mommy and daddy shall find their own way.”

Emma watched Regina trot down the steps and wander off into the wilds, apparently uncaring that she was wearing a silk dress and five inch heels. Emma scowled and didn’t know how to feel about that parting shot so she settled on irritation until she could puzzle it out later when she had the privacy to hyperventilate if need be.

“I hope your immortal constitution saves you from broken ankles too, you Prada wearing reprobate.” Emma jogged down the steps and winced when a voice called out in the dark.

“I heard that!”

Emma could only growl and stuff her hands and her keys deeper into the pockets of her jeans. She muttered darkly to herself and hurried off to find Henry and Merida.

She didn’t want them to elope if she left them alone for five minutes.

Up the hill and picking daintily through the rough terrain, Regina walked carefully despite her arrogance at Swan’s dig. Yes, she could break her ankles if unwary of her inappropriate footwear. Said ankles would heal faster but they would still hurt like a bitch.

She was _definitely_ not dressed appropriately for the outdoors.

She had known she’d have to look good for her dinner with Mal (and because Daniel) and had dressed accordingly. She had not known, however, that certain True Loves would be leading her off on a post dinner nature hike. So there she was, dressed in a cropped leather jacket and a deep blue halter necked dress that reached her knees in the style of Miss Munroe, matching blue sinful shoes and yomping through the fucking forest after her true love who should really be more considerate to his darling wife if he didn’t want to be sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable.

Who was she kidding? The couch had seen more than enough action from both of them and Regina was still jangling from Mal’s little trick with the pheromones. She’d really much rather be in her soundproofed bedroom right now.

Preferably on top of the very man she was searching for.

Still, she hiked her skirts and nimbly stepped over a fallen log. She knew where she was going in a vague sense. Daniel was certainly in this direction and she could see quite well in the dark due to the keen senses she had given herself a while back, but it took _time_ to navigate the leaf strewn forest floor. She gave serious thought to just teleporting to him but that might irritate him further and she needed the time involved in the trek towards him in order to figure out what it was that she had done this time.   

Huffing a sigh, Regina gave up and pulled off her heels one after the other. Her feet were tough enough –she’d caught a bullet with just a scratch after all- and she wasn’t wearing stockings that might run so she figured she was good. Like that, heels dangling from one hand, she moved much more quickly and found him in no time.

He stood with his back to her on the rise of the hill overlooking the canyon that separated Mal’s castle from the town as the crow flew. He had his face tilted up to the stars and she stopped level with him and following his gaze up to the stars beginning to twinkle through the twilight as true night fell.

Her eyes had changed, the magic had changed them, so she could see so much more than she had been able to before the curse had broken and her magic had returned. She let loose a slow pleased sigh at the sight of the galaxy’s arm stretching across the sky and spilling its light down on her. She had forgotten the colours. She had forgotten the marvel of the universe all around her if she had only bothered to look.

She smiled.

Then sobered.

“So…what did I do?” She looked up at him and found him to have his eyes closed, not stargazing at all.

“You tormented me.” He murmured.

“Oh?” Regina arched a brow. This ought to be good. She’d been –where he was concerned- on her best behaviour all night. Not once had she attempted to drag him onto the table and have him satisfy her rather than the food.

There had been a few close calls there, but she’d never given in.

“You’re –what do you call it here- horny?”

Regina snorted and nodded, her teeth a slash of white in the dark.

“Yes. Yes I am.” She swung her heels idly from her hand. “Mal’s idea of a joke.”

“ _Mal’s_ idea?” He turned to her, his face in shadow and she nodded.

“Dragon pheromones. Potent stuff. She’s never pointed the full force of it at me before and, well, I suppose she didn’t tonight. She was just proving a point.”

“What point is that? That a few moments more and I’d have been under that table with my head under your skirt to taste what I could smell?”

Regina opened her mouth and then clipped it shut.

“Uh…yes?” She shook herself. “No. Mal and I had a conversation about animal instinct and she probably thought it would be amusing to…reduce me to that state.”

“And that's all? Nothing to do with your hunger from this morning?” He turned to face her and Regina looked up into the silhouette of his face. She wondered idly how he was doing that. She could see into every other shadow but not those that covered his body.

“Well, I still feel all of that it’s just been…amplified.” Regina struggled to explain. “My magic is hungry. Sex is my favoured way of replenishing it and –now- making love to you,” her fingers traced over his knuckles and began a slow trek up his arm, “just seems to satisfy me and have me craving more all at the same time.”

Daniel chuckled a deep and rumbling sound. Completely male and smug at having such a hold over her.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” Regina stepped closer to him, tilting her face up to his, “I know exactly how to bring you to your knees too.”

“Promises, promises.” He rumbled, looming over her in the dark and she worked down a shiver. “Are you still?”

“Still what?” She was far too small like this. In her bare feet, she barely reached his collar bone. She was going to have to climb him like a tree to kiss him.

Hmm, so far not seeing a downside.  

“Still hungry.”

“Oh.” She grinned slowly. “Always.”

He chuckled again and she tilted her head at the sound. Something sounded…strange.

“Good. I have a theory as to why.”

“Do tell.” Regina realised belatedly that she’d dropped her heels at some point because both of her hands were giving sneaky little tugs to his shirt at his waist.

“Hyde.”

“What about him?” Oops, had that been a button? Oh well, she’d started so she might as well finish.

“I’m not a magical being. I’m scientific.”

“We all are, my love.” Oh dear, another button bites the dust. Shame. “Though we are all magic too, it just depends on where you’re coming from.”

“My point is; I may be from a land of magic but Hyde is not. So, when you fuck me, you’re only getting part of me. I think that’s why you’re still not satisfied even after both of us…plying ourselves so vigorously to making you otherwise.”

“Interesting.” Not half as interesting as having his entire shirt unbuttoned and shoving it from his shoulders. As innocently as a woman intent on starting on his belt buckle next can be innocent anyway.

The green light of his scar, the soft wisps of it curling into the air, glittered in her eyes and she smirked and gave up on subtlety. Shoving his shirt and jacket off in one go so that they thumped to the ground.

“You’re not listening.” He accused softly.

“I can assure you that you have every iota of my attention.” She murmured, fingers plucking at his belt.

“Subtle hints do not appear to be working.”

“I’ve never been the subtle type.”

“Regina.”

“What?”

“ _Regina._ ” He definitely had her attention when his hand manacled around her throat and he pulled her face up so he could look down into her eyes.

His eyes were green.

Regina’s tongue traced over her teeth when she looked into his eyes and it was Hyde’s panther green gaze that looked back at her. She bit her lip and felt a quiver go through her when he rumbled a low and pleased growl at the sight of her pupils dilating and her pulse hammering in the hollow of her throat.

His skin began to darken, seeming to bruise here and there until the entirety of his body became a solid slate grey. His hair grew longer as he grew bigger and broader, a tail slinking from his lower back and his lengthening steely claws rasped against the soft skin of her nape.

She’d never seen the change like that. It had always been explosive and violent. She’d never thought she’d be able to stand so close to him whilst it happened never mind let him hold onto her whilst he did it.

It was a seamless transition between Daniel and Hyde. One becoming the other as if…as if…as if they were both in perfect agreement over what they wanted.

And what they wanted was to fuck her until she couldn’t take it anymore.

Regina pressed her lips together to keep from whimpering in anticipation.

His grin was too wide and he had too many teeth and the chuckle that rumbled out of his chest was that sinful chocolate voice of his that made her quiver. He shook his head, his mane tumbling around them and brushing silky against her skin. Leaning down, stooping because she was so small in comparison to his massive frame, his teeth raked her ear and he whispered into her with that voice that made her toes curl in the dirt.

 _“Run._ ”

Regina ran.

 

**_Back in the Castle…_ **

 

“What did you do to Reggie?”

Mal turned away from the fireplace that she had been staring into in the cavernous castle’s version of a sitting room.

Her eyes landed on Ruby, perched on a giant sofa not dissimilar to the one that she had back in the guesthouse. Not unusual since Mal had designed it based on the experience of being stretched out on the plush couch under the little wolf that first night. She had made some improvements of course. Firmer arms, longer length, softer cushions and a collage of furs and throws cast over it for snuggling purposes.

Though any dragon worth their scales would never admit to snuggling…blankets _were_ a lot more comfortable and warmer than gold.

That and lolling in front of a fire whilst tucked under a metric tonne of wool and fur suited her cold blooded nature. She considered Ruby and the other form she could take. Such a large wolf. Such a large and _fluffy_ wolf. She would be a delightful self-heated cushion.

Then again, Mal wouldn’t say no to resting on top of Ruby as she was now.

She blinked when she realised she should be answering a question.

“Hmm?”

“Regina, she was all crackly before she left. She only gets like that when someone’s been messing with her and she doesn’t want to admit that she’s ticked about it. So, what did you do to her?”

“It was all in good fun.” Mal smirked and studied Ruby more thoroughly.

Despite the obvious comfort of the huge couch that could have easily fit four or five people on it, she perched on the very edge. She clutched her gold goblet of wine (no silver for the little wolf) in both hands and swirled it occasionally rather than drinking from it.

“What was?”

“I put her in heat.” Mal’s eyes glittered as she studied the little wolf in front of her. She tried to remember to be non-threatening as she had promised Regina but…she was a dragon. She didn’t really know how.   

“In…?” Ruby blinked at her.

“In heat.” Mal smiled and ran her green tongue over her teeth. Her eyes flashed. “Dragons have a particular control over their… _baser_ urges and that control extends to pushing that effect onto others. Gina, being the carnal little thing that she is, is particularly easy to sway in that manner.”

“Oh.” Ruby opened her mouth and looked down into her wine. “Can…can you do that to me?”

“You would like me to?” Mal tilted her head with a smile and it was almost insulting how vehemently she denied her.

“No! No. I mean, no, I just…I meant…” Ruby closed her eyes and forced herself to stop talking. She sucked in a calming breath though all she succeeded in doing was taking Mal’s scent right into the deepest part of her. “I meant –hypothetically- could you do it to a werewolf? That’s what I meant.”

“Hmm.” Mal prowled closer to the couch and bent at the waist to set her cup of wine down onto the floor. She was suffering a distinct lack of coffee tables. “I have never tried. Should I?”

“Uh…no.” Ruby’s eyes were wide and she shook her head hard, telling herself that there was absolutely nothing interesting down the neckline of Mal’s dress.

“Are you afraid of me, little wolf?” Mal straightened up and prowled over to stand beside Ruby, one leg lifted to rest her knee on the couch, so close that her knee brushed against Ruby’s hip.

Ruby gulped. Hard.

“No.” Ruby shook her head and pressed her lips together. “No. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Your nerves belie you.” Mal noted absently and twisted, falling backwards in a graceful sprawl so that she lounged back on the couch.

 Her head resting in the cushions piled up against the arm of the couch that was as large as a queen size bed. She wriggled deeper into the furs and throws, heaving out a sigh when she found herself at her most comfortable. One leg was bent at the knee, the slit to the hip allowing her dress to slither all the way to the top of her thigh and her other leg was stretched out so that her toes would brush against Ruby’s hip if she moved just so. Her arms were thrown over her head and Ruby thought it was equal parts infuriating and terrorising that Mal looked like a centrefold without even trying.

“I’m not afraid!” Ruby snapped from her stupor and glared at her.

“Then why so far away? You rested quite comfortably against me just last night.” Mal tilted her head, green and purple eyes glowing faintly.

“Yeah, well, that was…an accident.” Ruby swallowed hard. She drained her cup of wine and went back to fidgeting with it.

That hadn’t helped.

Sometimes being able to metabolise alcohol so quickly was a real bitch.

A lot of the time actually.

Mall huffed out a plume of smoke and she turned her head from Ruby so that she could look into the flames. Her face was expressionless for a long moment and then she snorted and a rueful smile kicked at her mouth.

“What?”

“You may go.” Mal wouldn’t look back at her.

“You…want me to go?” The smallness of Ruby’s voice finally drew Mal’s gaze back to her.

“No.” Point of fact, Mal never wanted to let her go. She wanted her here for always.

Must be the void she felt since being reminded of her dear little Cobalt.

“I don’t want to go.” Ruby blinked at her. Clearly not understanding where this conversation had come from.

“You’re perched on that couch like a rabbit on the nose of a wolf. You’re terrified of me. Do not _lie_ to me.”

“I’m not lying!” Ruby bared her teeth and tossed her empty wine cup away so hard that it bounced against the floor twice.

Mal watched it go, helpless not to due to the shine off the polished metal. Her eyes ticked back to Ruby and she found the little wolf rather angry at her.

How…cute.

“I’m not afraid of you. My hair stands on end when I’m around you and my senses are all over the place but I am NOT afraid.”

Mal’s chin kicked up and she looked at Ruby from under hooded lashes.

“Prove it.”

Ruby, her jaw set stubbornly, shifted closer. She inched up the couch so that she sat level with the dragon’s knee.

“Closer.” Mal dared her and Ruby slid further up the couch so she was lever with Mal’s mid thigh.

 _“Closer._ ” Mal ran her tongue over her teeth and needled the little wolf.

Ruby snorted and shifted even higher up the couch so that she was level with Mal’s hip.

Mal sat up suddenly, so quickly that it made Ruby’s breath catch and she found herself practically nose to nose with the most powerful creature she’d ever come across. Her wolf got really loud for a second, a whine and a growl shivering through her head at the same time, hackles rising and falling in an uncomfortable crawling sensation haunting up and down her back.

But she didn’t flinch and she didn’t pull back.

Mal cocked her head, not having expected that, and hummed deep in her throat.

“Interesting.” She decided after a moment.

Mal really was very close. She could see the hammering of the little wolf’s pulse in her throat, hear the siren call of her pounding heartbeat, smell her, such a heady scent, feel the warmth coming off her. She was so warm. Much hotter than the rest of the puny pinklings.

“See.” Ruby’s voice was quiet but steady. “I’m not afraid.”

“Turn your back to me.” Mal gave the command in that same daring tone and Ruby frowned at her but twisted around so that Mal was in her blind spot.

She didn’t flinch when Mal’s hot hand came down on her back right between her shoulder blades. Her long claws caught on the material of Ruby’s red check shirt and the dragon made a strange sound when she snagged repeatedly on the material.

“Off.” She commanded and Ruby stiffened. “Afraid?”

“No.” Ruby attacked the first few buttons of her shirt and hoisted it up over her head to toss it onto the end of the couch.

“This too.” Mal raked her claws against the tank top Ruby wore under the shirt, the thinner material ripping here and there in deference to her razor sharp nails.

Ruby sucked in a shivering breath and hesitated…but she wasn’t afraid. She had to prove that for reasons unknown to her so her tank joined her shirt over the end of the couch leaving her in just her black bra.

“These are interesting.” Mal’s sharp nail traced the shoulder strap of Ruby’s bra and then plucked at the fastening at the back. “Much more comfortable than corsets.”

“Uh-huh.” Ruby nearly rolled her eyes at herself. Way to offer erudite conversation. She squeaked when –with a flick of her hand- Mal loosed the eyelet catches from Ruby’s bra and it fell open. Ruby clapped her hands over her chest to keep it from just sliding down her arms and she half twisted to glare at Mal.

“Alright, there’s not being afraid and there’s you taking liberties.”

“You are tense.” Mal leaned forward so her chin very nearly rested on Ruby’s shoulder and her mouth was _very_ close. “I seek to alleviate that. I am to be a good host after all.”

“I was less tense when I had all my clothes on.” Ruby frowned at her and Mal chuckled.

“Clothes are a nuisance. They get in the way of _this_.”

Mal set two claws over Ruby’s spine at her hairline and then dragged them all the way down her back to the waistband of her low riding jeans.

Ruby sucked in a breath, her back arching involuntarily and – _damn­_ \- that had felt good.

“What…?”

Ruby didn’t get the chance to finish her question as Mal had already set the claws of all four fingers down over her spine in another electrifying pass of scintillating danger. Claws that could shear through steel dragging harmlessly over Ruby’s soft skin. Harmless only because it suited Mal to be so in that moment.

“Oh god.” Ruby gasped and fell forward to catch her hands on her knees and try to stop herself from melting into a puddle on the polished floors.

“Good?”

“Don’t stop.” Ruby very nearly whimpered at the very prospect and Mal hummed a pleased sound.

She shifted her weight so that she might lift both hands and set all ten claws to Ruby’s skin and criss-cross them over her back. She raked her repeatedly, so softly, but hard enough to scratch away that crawling sensation of Ruby’s hackles rising and falling that had been plaguing her all night.

It felt _so_ good. Ruby had been under the impression that her entire back couldn’t be an erogenous zone but –oh god- she was fully converted to the idea.

Mal kept it up for exactly as long as Ruby needed it before the heat of the passing of her claws became unbearable and possibly painful. She measured Ruby’s heartbeat, the slowing of her breathing and her scent until Mal knew that she had to be practically boneless and drunk in a way that wine would never manage on a werewolf constitution.

Mal leaned forward, slowing her scratching to just one hand, the scales of her dress and the heat of her flesh brushing against Ruby’s heated skin. Her free arm wound around Ruby’s neck so Mal’s forearm was inches from her mouth.

“Bite.”

Ruby’s eyes snapped open, the spell broken, and she jerked back. She succeeded in doing nothing more than plastering herself to Mal’s body and nearly landing in her lap. Mal’s other arm slid around her waist and pinned Ruby exactly where she was.

“Bite me.” She nuzzled Ruby’s hair away from her ear. “You cannot hurt me. You cannot turn me. Bite.”

“No. I can’t, I…”

“Bite.” Mal turned her arm so the softer skin of her inner forearm brushed against Ruby’s lips. Her own fangs raked Ruby’s bare shoulder. “You cannot hurt me.”

“But…”

“ _Bite._ ” Mal raked her claws over the sensitive skin of Ruby’s belly and the wolf in her snarled at the subtle threat and instinct took over.

Ruby lunged forward, her lips parting and her teeth coming down on Mal’s arm. She sank her teeth in as deep as they would go and a thrill went through her when she felt Mal’s skin give but not break. Blood did not fill Ruby’s mouth and it was both relieving to her and frustrating to the wolf.

Ruby bit down harder and that ache in her teeth, the itch of her jaws, the burn to snap and tear, melted away. She bit down harder still and Mal’s skin still didn’t break. The dragon chuckled and Ruby’s wolf snarled in frustration even as Ruby’s ravenous need to bite was sated over and over as she ineffectively mauled Mal’s arm.

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

Ruby pried her jaws apart, releasing Mal’s arm, and rounded on her fast enough to cause green and purple eyes to widen at the speed.

Ruby shoved, pushing Mal down onto the couch and crawling after her to straddle her hips.

Mal let her, smirking, and let her arms fall to her sides, letting the little wolf do as she pleased.

Ruby’s eyes glittered as they roved over her prey. Her red tongue traced over white teeth and her eyes burned like golden lanterns from in her head. Her nails were longer and sharper, as were her teeth, and she didn’t even care.

She pounced, her teeth closing on Mal’s shoulder and she bit down as hard as she could. That ache in her jaw disappearing with the feel of muscle and skin between her fangs. The wolf howled at the lack of blood but Ruby didn’t care. She bit Mal’s upper arm and then raked her teeth over her collarbone. She nipped at her other shoulder and then lower, growling when she came across the silvery scales of Mal’s dress.

She caught that in her teeth and shredded it away, her claws lifting to ravage the material away, yanking it roughly down over Mal’s body. She wore nothing underneath it and that barely registered for Ruby. All she could see was more smooth unmarked skin that needed to have a Ruby shaped bite right _there_.

Ruby’s teeth closed over the swell of Mal’s breast and she still couldn’t break the skin. She left bruises in her wake, red scraped skin, zinging red lines from her claws but Mal didn’t mind. In fact, she seemed to quite like it.

Ruby could smell her. As always, she could smell her everywhere, but she could smell heat and dragon and…and pleasure. Mal wasn’t just submitting to being bitten she was _enjoying_ it.

Ruby growled a low and pleased sound and she nipped and teased the skin of Mal’s chest over to her other breast and felt Mal’s fingers spear into her hair. Her claws raked her scalp and Ruby lifted her head to arch into the contact before ducking her head to bite again.

She didn’t even notice her tongue lap over Mal’s nipple but Mal certainly did. She muttered something in draconian, the words sparking pink from behind her teeth. Her hips rolled up beneath Ruby’s weight and her other arm lifted to rake down over Ruby’s back. Harder this time, grazing the skin with a burn.

Ruby turned her head, sinking her teeth into Mal’s inner elbow, her tongue lapping against the skin expecting blood and frustrated when she tasted none. She gave her head a little shake and moved on when that didn’t work either. She wriggled backwards, retreating down Mal’s body so that she knelt between Mal’s legs.

Ruby’s claws snagged in Mal’s dress again and she yanked, ripping it down to Mal’s hips and following the map of bared skin that she uncovered. She bit and nipped and mauled. Teeth scraping, digging in deep, sucking on taut golden skin, licking, clawing.

Mal’s breath caught when Ruby’s hot weight settled between her thighs and she groaned, hips pushing up off the cushions beneath her and her back arching when Ruby’s teeth sank into her hip hard enough to grate over the bone beneath.

She had not expected the little wolf to have a reaction like _this_ when finally given the freedom to bite and rend with impunity. Had Mal been human, Ruby would have killed her with that first bite, tearing through veins and arteries, nearly ripping her arm clean off with that single lunging bite but Mal was _not_ human.

Which left her the freedom to enjoy every single sinking bite that Ruby saw fit to brand her with.

She panted, chest heaving, hips rolling up against Ruby’s body, grinding against her. She tried to control herself. Ruby was not as strong as she nor was she truly thinking about what she was doing. She was lost in instinct and need and Mal had sought to feed that and not her own desire. The fact that she wanted nothing more than to do that came as a surprise to her but she held herself in check.

She whimpered when Ruby’s hand spanned her bare thigh and spread Mal’s legs wider so that she could lie more comfortably between them. She bit and sucked at the sensitive skin of Mal’s belly and then turned her head suddenly and pounced with a speed and strength that sent a spike of need clean through Mal.

She panted when Ruby’s teeth sank deep into the quivering skin of her leg near her knee and tortured bites higher and higher up Mal’s inner thigh. Mal nearly whimpered and her claws tightened in Ruby’s hair. If the little wolf bit just one inch higher then she would lose control entirely.

Mal yanked, claws biting into Ruby’s shoulder and fisting in her hair. She dragged Ruby up over the length of her body, drawing a yelp from the wolf, but she didn’t give her the chance to surface into conscious thought, not yet.

 Mal tilted her head back and twisted to the side, baring her throat to her little wolf. She arched her back and tugged Ruby towards her, angling her head the opposite way from Mal’s so that her jaws might completely span Mal’s throat if she was of a mind to and –gods- she _was._

Mal couldn’t stop the cry of ecstasy ripped from her throat when Ruby bit down there.

Mal knew that it did not mean the same to a werewolf, to bite the throat, as it did to a dragon, but she didn’t care. It was a sign of intimacy amongst dragons, to open themselves so vulnerably to another creature that could quite easily kill them once given that power. It was a sign of trust, one that she’d had no idea that she’d been willing to give to the little wolf.

That and there were a _lot_ of nerve endings there in dragon physiology and every single one of them were having a great time at that moment.

Mal’s hand tightened in Ruby’s hair and Ruby fought her as was expected. As far as she was concerned, this was a dominance thing and Mal was quite willing to let her have her way.

This time.

Ruby braced both hands against the couch above Mal’s shoulders, teeth sinking deep into her throat, pressing down on both carotids, restricting her windpipe. She pushed, lifting them both with her strength and with her teeth in Mal’s neck. She bit harder and shook her head, teeth worrying her throat and –finally- the taste of blood filled her mouth.

Ruby snapped back to herself with a sudden crash and she snapped her teeth loose, dropping Mal back onto the couch. She shot backwards so suddenly that she lost her footing and crashed to the floor, slithering over the polished stones.

Her chest was heaving, bra hanging half off, blood had turned her teeth pink and dripped  from her mouth. She licked at it before she had the human thought to be repulsed at her own actions.

She sat there like that –stunned- for a long moment. All she could hear was the thundering of her own heart and the harsh pants of both hers and Mal’s breathing.

“Well,” Mal croaked and sat up, “that was…”

“I’m so sorry!” Ruby flickered to her feet in a blur of werewolf speed and refastened her bra in the same motion.

“Little wolf…”

“I’m really sorry.” Ruby snatched up her shirt and her tank and gripped them in hands that still had claws. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean, I…I’m sorry!”

Mal swung her legs over the side of the couch, not seeming to notice the way her dress slid lower over her body with every move or the way blood trickled from the bruising bite on her neck. She didn’t even seem to feel the multitude of bruises that almost covered every inch of her.

Ruby opened her mouth, her chin quivered a moment and tears spilled from her eyes.

“Ruby, calm…” Mal braced herself as if to stand and Ruby broke.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was a rasping whisper, voice still hoarse from all the growling  she had been doing, and then she was gone.

Mal twisted, seeing a blur of wolf race past her and then the doors to the main hall of the castle bursting open when a hysterical werewolf bounded through them and into the night.

Mal frowned and sat back on the couch again.

She replayed everything that happened –every enjoyable moment- and couldn’t see where she had done something to upset the wolf so grievously. Mal’s frown of confusion turned to one of worry.

What did she do wrong?

Or had it been nothing and it was just her that was wrong?

Mal turned away from the roaring flames within the fireplace and shredded away the remains of her dress. Bounding over the back of the couch, green magic boiling from her, Mal hit the floor not on soft human feet but the indestructible talons of her true form.

She swarmed through the castle, claws shrieking over the obsidian floors, barrelling through the huge doors built to accommodate her massive form. Her head came up, her legs bunched and she hurled herself into the night with booming claps of her wings.

She was fierce, fire streaming from her parted ivory fangs as long as a grown man’s arm. Her wings a typhoon, her scales an impenetrable armour, her eyes keener than any hawk, her strength dwarfing that of any other creature, her voice was that of a god. She was a ruler of all she surveyed, she was all powerful, she was…

She was hurt.

Maleficent, Dragon of the West and Queen of Thorns, keened a pained sound and spun away into the night.

She had never felt more trapped in her life.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...that went from zero to lesbian faster than I could get my gaydar out. 
> 
> Do we like dragonwolf or not?


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, sorry I've been away for so long and this should really be a H+1/2 update but I haven't even looked at those two in such a long time...they keep being difficult. They have no one to blame but themselves. 
> 
> Anyway, on with the show. 
> 
> As I say, my Mal is NOT canon Mal (which is probably a good thing) she is a dragon first and a sorceress second. 
> 
> Just so we're all clear. That's how she got to the age she did without knowing some of the things she doesn't know. 
> 
> That sentence made my brain hurt, so I'm just going to carry on. 
> 
> Also, I have not seen the latest episode (the one that has sent all you OQ-shippers off the deep end) so no spoilers and -also- it is not within my power to fix these things but I shall continue to write glorious Regina fics for you to enjoy and soothe the ills that the show brings forth in you. 
> 
> I shall refrain from launching into a rousing rendition of the I-Told-You-So dance about Robin being a prick so as to not rub salt in some already apparently heinous wounds. 
> 
> Chin up, guys.

**Chapter 44 – The Morning After the Night Before**

 

**_The Manor…_ **

 

Regina woke late.

She frowned, prying her eyes open and staring at the ceiling. She tried to move and grimaced when every single muscle in her body protested. She flopped back down into the mess of pillows that seemed to take over the entire bed if she wasn’t consciously regimenting them, and smirked.

She felt so deliciously… _sated_.

It would seem that Daniel/Hyde’s theory had been correct and she really had needed to be –ahem- recharged by both of them. Her magic simmered wonderfully under her skin without any of those creaky post-war-mage-shenanigan-workout pains.

Her body felt a little bruised but that was to be expected after a night with Hyde and what a night it had been.

Hyde had bidden her to run and she had. She’d led him on a merry chase through the woods, until he’d grown tired of pursuing her and taken her effortlessly to the ground. She remembered his huge body angling beneath hers so his weight didn’t crush her and she frowned at that.

That had been…kind. That had been something Daniel might do.

Regina frowned and it only deepened when more details of the night before came back to her. He had taken her then and there on the forest floor, flipping her onto her back, pulling her legs over his shoulders and burying his head between her thighs as Daniel had said he’d spent the entire night wanting to do himself.

He had brought her to orgasm again and again until she was wild with need and only then had he plunged his cock into her and driven her over the edge yet again as he had found his own release.

She had been willing to go again, ready and raring in fact, but he had simply smiled and receded. Daniel shrugging off his shape like a coat that no longer fit.

Regina opened her eyes, watching the ceiling, her frown deepening.

That had been new, that had been strange. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time but –now- in the cold light of day and with less dragon pheromones drugging her system…that had been REALLY strange.

Hyde was a creature of appetites. He pursued them with a rabid intensity that was terrifying and completely void of morals…didn’t he?

He didn’t just…service her and then disappear back to whichever cage it was in Daniel’s head that he sullenly watched the world from always wanting freedom and never gaining it.

Daniel had handed over the reins last night and Hyde had seen to her needs and handed them right on back.

Something twisted in Regina’s chest and it felt like her heart fell loose and splashed down into her stomach where it sat like a rock.

She replayed how he had looked last night in the dark. How he had looked at her with those glittering animal eyes, devouring every detail of her as she had reached for him again and he had shaken his head, that leering smile of his not a leer at all but…sad.

Regina gulped hard, her eyes suddenly burning in…in…she didn’t know what.

Hyde was a monster. He was dangerous, vicious, cruel, a terror in the night that made even the Evil Queen and the Dark One take a step back and think about their lives and about how they wanted them to continue for a bit longer yet.

Yes, he was a monster but…maybe that wasn’t all he could be.

Regina bolted upright.

Daniel grunted beside her and she loomed over him, gripping his shoulder and shaking him.

“Daniel. Daniel, wake up.”

Daniel grumbled and rolled onto his back, he clasped her hand in his, bringing it to his mouth to kiss her fingers before he even opened his eyes and he smiled for her.

“Morning.” He blinked a few times, his head tilted and he frowned when he saw her face. “What’s wrong? You look upset.”

“I am.” Regina struggled to explain and then shook her head. “I need to speak to Hyde.”

Daniel looked at her for a long moment  and then he nodded. He rolled his head on his neck and flexed his shoulders and…nothing. He frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Regina touched the torque at his neck. It was no warmer than his body heat had made it. Usually it steamed when the transformation took over but…nothing.

“I…don’t know.” Daniel rubbed at his chest and the scar there.

He lifted his head to look down at it and saw it just as whole, complete and gently glowing as it always was in its dormant state. It grew wider as if about to open and blinding light poured from it when he changed but…not now.

Daniel flopped his head back into the pillows and frowned. He sent his thoughts deeper into the dark recesses of his mind to where Hyde liked to prowl and…he frowned at what he found.

“What is it?” Regina looked worried then and Daniel struggled to explain. He understood now perfectly how she felt whenever she had to try and explain magic to someone.

“He’s…he’s all tucked up back here.” Daniel tangled his fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck. “It’s usually where he springs from but he likes to go wandering between times, skimming the surface to have a look when something smells interesting to him. Usually you.” He glanced at Regina and saw her bite her lip. “It feels like…it feels like it did after he came across our love for the first time. It made him bleed. It enchanted his heart and it hurt him. He sank right down into the dark when that happened and it’s _kind_ of like that now but something’s different.”

“Does he seem,” Regina sucked in a fortifying breath and hoped she was wrong and right at the same time, “does he seem sad?”

Daniel’s eyes took on a faraway look at that as he disappeared into his thoughts to venture closer to Hyde and prod at him again.

He had the sense that Hyde was curled in on himself, like a cat turns into a Danish to sleep…or lick its wounds. He tried again to get through to the owner of his heart and Hyde shifted, Daniel braced himself for the beast to come out roaring and take over, but all Hyde did was turn over and sink deeper into the dark, curling even tighter about himself and ignoring Daniel entirely.

It made Daniel incredibly uneasy. He was used to Hyde being larger than life in his head. Offering commentary on life, the universe and everything every minute of every day. Usually pointing out how easy it would be to kill someone that was irritating Daniel or about how Regina was wearing _far_ too many clothes but now there was nothing.

“He’s so quiet.” Daniel murmured. “Not the sinister quiet either, the thinking quiet that means he’s about to be more dangerous than usual but…it’s hard to explain. It feels like he’s hurt but I don’t have that blocking sensation he puts up when he’s taken a wound for me and he’s healing it himself. It takes a lot of concentration for him to do it but even then I’m usually getting heckled for getting hurt in the first place. Even when I didn’t consciously know of him, he was never this quiet.”

“And he won’t come out?” Regina dragged a fingernail down over the bumps of the staples of his scar.

“He won’t even answer me.” Daniel reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “What is it, love?”

“Don’t…don’t take this the wrong way,” she looked up at him, her eyes bright, “but I really think I should speak to Hyde about this first.”

Daniel tilted his head, threading his fingers through her hair still, and he smiled softly.

“I’ll tell you when he starts talking to me again.”

“Thank you.” She mustered a smile from somewhere and leaned down to kiss him softly on the lips.

Both of them flinched when a sudden thud rattled the window in its frame.

Daniel was on the end of the bed in a crouch, prepared to spring, before Regina could even turn.

After a moment, the thud repeated with a molar interfering shriek of something sharp over glass. Daniel inhaled deeply and then he turned to raise his eyebrows at Regina.

“Were you expecting a dragon at our bedroom window this morning?”

“It’s Mal?” Regina bounded out of bed.

“Love…clothes?” Daniel flopped back onto the bed to sit with his legs stretched out in front of him. He picked up a pillow and slapped it down onto his lap.

“Right, right!” Regina spun this way and that and then scooped up a clean shirt that Daniel had probably left out to wear this morning. She yanked it over her head and opened the window to look out at Mal before she’d even finished pulling it down over her body.

She stilled at what she saw.

“Mal?”

**“Good morning.”**

“Is it?” Regina folded her arms over her chest and studied her friend.

Mal looked…miserable.

She stood carefully on the street, her tail tucked so she didn’t smack over something like a lamppost or Regina’s neighbour’s garage. Her back was arched so she could stand over the hedge around Regina’s garden without crushing it, her wings plastered to her back not to catch any power lines and her neck curled back on itself so she didn’t put her nose clean through the window. She had nudged it with her snout to ‘knock’.

That being said, the spines and frills around her head were downturned, she wouldn’t look Regina in the eye and her tail wouldn’t even twitch right at the tip.

“ **Maybe for some. You reek of sex.”**

Regina looked at her for a long moment. Even that little dig had been half-hearted at best. She heaved out a breath and then looked over at Daniel.

“Fine!” He flopped back onto the bed. “But I’m not getting up yet.”

“The bed’s big enough for three.”

Daniel tensed and then relaxed.

“Fine. However, I will not be held responsible for any of my actions should I suddenly find _two_ beautiful women in my bed and at least one of you has to sit on me.”

Regina huffed a laugh.

“Deal.” She turned back to Mal and held out her hand. “Come on then.”

Mal let loose a sigh and something of a watery smile that was just heart breaking to be on the face of such a fearsome creature as Mal. Whatever it was that had hurt her so fiercely, it wasn’t mortal in nature and, Regina suspected, she might have had a hand in it.

Magic bloomed over the dragon, green smoke billowing and obscuring her completely. Regina held her hand out still and felt Mal’s close around her own. Leaning back, with a grunt of effort, she pulled the larger and _much_ heavier woman in through the window.

Mal slithered in over the sill and stood tall beside Regina.

She was also completely naked.

“I find myself enjoying this morning more and more.” Daniel shifted on the bed, propping himself up on the pillows, his fingers laced together behind his head.

Regina shot him a look and he just grinned, completely unrepentant.

“I’m faithful, love, not blind.”

“Remember that the next time Charming takes his shirt off.” Regina teased and Daniel scowled at her.

“You two are disgusting. If I have to sit on him, it shall be in my other form.” Mal spoke sullenly and padded deeper into the room.

“Hmm, perhaps I should go and find breakfast.” Daniel rolled out of bed and didn’t bother taking the pillow with him, he found a pair of pants (pyjamas that Regina insisted on leaving out for him even if he had never worn them), kissed her on the cheek on the way by and left them alone.

Regina watching him go and then turned to Mal.

“Cold?” She asked pointedly.

“No. I can breathe fire, why would I…this is one of those modesty things, isn’t it?”

“I _know_ that you hate them, but you tend to be more than a little distracting without them.”

“I should hope that I am more than a little distracting _with_ them.” Mal told her archly but slipped her arms into the sleeves of the robe Regina held out to her. She closed it over her body but didn’t belt it.

She padded around the room instead, studying everything with an entirely disproportionate interest. Regina watched her prowl for a moment and grew impatient.

“Mal, I’m hungry, I want breakfast too, so spit it out and tell me what’s rubbed your scales the wrong way.”

“I…” Mal looked up at the ceiling for a long moment. Her mouth twisted and she sighed. “I don’t know what I did wrong. I frightened her and I don’t even know how. I keep doing it, Gina. I keep scaring them and I don’t…I can’t stop it.”

Regina sighed and moved to the bed. She crawled beneath the duvet and patted the empty spot beside her.

“I’m not sitting in the cooling excretions of your bedplay.” Mal spoke darkly and raked her claws over the velvet wallpaper.

“If you must know, all _excretions_ were restricted to the outdoors last night. Now come and sit before I invite Daniel back to change that.”

Mal made a face at her but she slunk into the bed beside Regina and lay down, her head propped on her lap. Regina tangled her fingers in Mal’s hair and petted her, just letting her absorb the simple human contact.

Dragons were known to be solitary creatures but that was not the case. They were private, it was different. Mal would often travel to the territories of other dragons to sleep with them. Sleep and nothing more. Dragons preferred to sleep in a pile if at all possible. Perhaps something to do with their often cold blooded nature and perhaps something to do with the desire to just have company.

Regina sat in silence with Mal. Sometimes that was the best thing she could do for her dragon friend. Her immortal friend who had walked many worlds for over three thousand years. So much pain, so much solitude. Everyone around her so small in comparison, so fragile, so fleeting. She lived surrounded by mayflies. Each life as fragile and transient as a struck match.

It must be so terribly lonely.

Regina folded forward, wrapping her arms around Mal and resting her cheek on her shoulder. She cuddled her closer and heaved a sigh.

“That has to be uncomfortable.” Mal murmured.

“Not terribly.” Regina lied.

“I thought…I thought I was helping her. I thought that it would…that it would make her feel better.” Mal picked at the stitching of one of the pillows strewn across the bed, shredding it in fact, but Regina let her. “It didn’t.”

“Ruby?”

“What you said, about her needing people she couldn’t hurt, I wanted to show her that I could be that. Someone she couldn’t hurt.” A quiver raced through Mal and Regina held her tighter.

“It seems that was a lie, hmm?”

“She ran away, Gina. They _all_ run away. Everyone save you…and Rumple but his scales are gone now and he’s not nearly as wonderful as he thinks he is.”

Regina chuckled into Mal’s shoulder and Mal smiled. Though it was sad.

“She ran away and she cried. I made her cry.” Mal’s voice was hoarse. “A beautiful creature like her, a predator like me and…she was so afraid of me that she wept.”

“I told you that Ruby isn’t afraid of you.” Regina murmured and her arms tightened around Mal when she shifted to twist and look at her and no doubt give her a waspish retort. “I wasn’t lying. The only thing Ruby fears is herself. You let her bite you, didn’t you? You gave her everything she didn’t know she wanted and it got out of hand. So roughly that she managed to pierce your skin and taste your blood and _that_ was what frightened her. That she could hurt even you.”

“How…?”

“You have a bruise on your neck. Across your throat. Fitting I think since the first thing Ruby did when she saw you was try and rip your throat out.”

“Hmm!” Mal hummed a chuckle. “It was rather sweet the way she came to your defence.”

Regina rolled her eyes. Only Mal would find someone trying to tear out her jugular adorable.

“That and it must have been Ruby because you kept the wound. I imagine she bit you more than once, she’s got quite a few years of frustration to work out, but you kept the one that scared her. To remind you of what you think you did to terrorise her.”

“I don’t _think_ I terrorised her.” Mal growled. “I did. I know fear when I see it.”

“Not of you. Of your blood. Of your pain.” Regina heaved a sigh and wondered how much she should say. Well, she supposed she hadn’t kept her mouth shut up until now and it was no real secret… “Ruby didn’t know she was a werewolf until she was in her late teens.”

“But…”

“I know, the change starts much earlier than that but Granny tried to keep it from Ruby. She sourced a cloak that could keep Ruby in her human form during the full moon.”

“That’s barbaric!” Mal made as if to rise but Regina pinned her down to the bed. In the scatty mood Mal was in, she was likely to fly off and set the diner on fire.

“She was scared.” Regina told her firmly. “She’d been turned by her husband when she was a young woman and she never learned to control it. She had to lock herself away every month, knowing that if she ever got out she’d be death incarnate.”

  “Is that…is that how Ruby sees herself?” The hurt in Mal’s voice made Regina ache. For her friend and her sister.

She wondered if she’d made this worse but she’d seen the connection from the very beginning. From the first moment she’d seen Ruby and Mal interact –when they weren’t trying to kill one another- she’d known what they were to one another and all she had wanted to do was to get them to see it.

“For a long time she did and a lot of that had to do with…well, the first time she turned, the first time she _realised_ she had turned, it was to come back to herself standing in a pool of her lover’s blood. They had thought he was the wolf and bound him to the base of a tree in order to keep him from hurting Ruby.”

“Oh…” Mal’s mouth worked for a moment and Regina felt a tear drip down onto her skin. “My little wolf.”

Mal didn’t appear to realise she had said the last and Regina didn’t bring it up.

“So, she thinks, as soon as she lets go, she’s going to hurt someone. Last night, when she bit your neck and you let her bleed you –no doubt from being caught in the moment- she terrorised _herself_.” Regina gave Mal a squeeze. “It’s her baggage, gecko, not yours. You did nothing wrong. She needs to know that you can walk this kind of thing off.”

“I’ll note she doesn’t need the same reassurance with you.” Mal’s voice was glum.

“I’m already a werewolf –well- part time. She can’t turn me and I’m more than strong enough to reduce her to a fine paste should she go postal.”

Mal frowned, not understanding the reference. She failed to see what a wooden beam had to do with anything.

“That makes no sense. If what you say is true; she should know that she can’t hurt me. I’m stronger than you by far.”

“True.” Regina had no trouble in admitting it. There was a reason that Mal had been worshipped as a god by the Aztecs…Mayans…Aztecs? Whatever. “Though fear can shut down rational thought of occasion.”

Mal mulled that over for long moments.

“So…what do I do?”

“Well, you can stop wallowing in self-pity for a start.” Mal growled and tried to rise but Regina shoved her down again. “This is about Ruby, not you. You’re not afraid of her, you’re afraid of what she makes you feel. Which is a heady thing for an immortal. Feeling. You have to reassure her that you’re not scared, that you don’t fear her and that she _cannot_ hurt you.”

“Should I…get rid of the bruise?” Mal lifted a hand to touch her neck.

“Keep it. Perhaps it might remind her that she can’t seriously hurt you.”

“Or it shall remind her that she can break my skin.” Mal harrumphed. “This is far too complicated. I don’t know why I bother with you little bipedal walking fonts of nonsense.”

“Well, I know it’s because _I’m_ adorable…” Regina hummed and Mal shifted her shoulder to nudge Regina in the cheek quite hard.

“My reasoning stands,” Mal ignored Regina, “will the mark not simply remind her of the power of her jaws?”

“Hmmm, perhaps, but wolves also mark what they intend to keep. Maybe this will tell the wolf that you’re pack and –if you’re pack- the wolf cannot hurt you.”

“That is…bizarre.” Mal decided.

“Yes. Yes it is.” Regina sighed. “Welcome to human-werewolf relations.”

“Relations?” Mal jolted and Regina laughed.

“That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.” Regina sat up. “Now, we had best eat something before _I_ bite someone because I’m starving.” She gave Mal a gentle shove and the dragon grumbled but rolled out of bed anyway.

“There had better be waffles.” Mal growled a little and watched Regina with some amusement as she sourced a _tiny_ pair of smalls and wriggled into them under her shirt. She pulled off the shirt put on a bra and then pulled the shirt back on.

Mal heaved a sigh.

“I _truly_ do not understand you sometimes.”

“Gravity affects my race, get over it.” Regina dismissed Mal’s confusion as not being her problem and walked out of the room and into the hallway.

“I just don’t understand what the fuss is about. We’re all the same under our clothes.”

“Some of us are decidedly more pleasing under our clothes than others.” Regina drawled, holding the door open for Mal. “These garments are to save our eyes from the offences of ugly people. Imagine a dwarf without clothing.”

Mal’s face screwed up and she scraped her tongue with her teeth a couple of times as if she had tasted something foul.

“Oh, god, come here.” Regina gripped Mal by her robe and yanked her around to face her. “You’re doing this on purpose now.”

“ _What?!”_ Mal threw up her hands in frustration. “I am wearing MUCH more material than you are.” She fisted a hand in her borrowed robe and whipped the material back and forth.

“Ah, but _my_ material, covers all my feminine segments and that’s what matters. Now, come here.” Regina pulled Mal closer and bundled the robe closed over her front, belting it tightly at the cinch of her waist. Due to their difference in height and measurements, it barely reached Mal's knees when it hit Regina at mid-calf and the front didn’t close with as much overlap over her chest.

Regina decided that she wasn’t going to feel inferior as Mal was probably under the impression that those things on her chest –that were her chest- were air sacs and the bigger the better.

Regina had never quite had the heart to tell her what they were actually used for as the thought of nursing had been quite horrific to Mal the first time she had heard of it so Regina had halted her explanation then and there and then just gone on to explaining the actual physiology so Mal’s human form would look more convincing.

“Your hair is a mess.” Mal reached up and combed her claws through Regina’s shoulder length hair. “And I don’t see why you have to wear this if you’re wearing the cup thing underneath.” Mal caught the neck of Regina’s shirt in her claws and jerked, ripping several buttons free and baring her to the cleavage.

“Stop that.” Regina finished her rather complex knot that she was almost certain Mal wouldn’t be able to casually undo if she suddenly felt the need to wander around naked (not as unlikely as it should be).

“Why? It isn’t as if we haven’t spent time with one another naked before.” Mal huffed.

“Uh…”

Regina looked up and saw Emma standing halfway out of her room, frozen in the action of tucking her shirt into her jeans and absorbing every detail of Regina’s hands on the tie of Mal’s robe and Mal’s claws down the front of Regina’s shirt.

“Something wrong?” Regina frowned a little. Not quite sure what had unsettled the Saviour.

“No!” Emma shook her head and ducked out of her room. “No. I just…I mean…hey, you’re best friends, we should all be so lucky and I really need to stop talking right now so I’m going to breakfast, ‘kay, thanks, bye.”

Emma sidled hurriedly past them and practically bolted down the stairs.

“What’s wrong with her? We’re clothed aren’t we?” Mal looked down at Regina and the smaller woman shrugged.

“Who knows? I stopped paying attention to her thought process –scant though they are at the shallow end of the gene pool- quite some time ago. Now, come along, I do believe there _are_ waffles on the go.”

“Ooh, with syrup?”

Mal hurried after Regina, her melancholy mood entirely forgotten for the moment and Regina smiled.

That had been precisely her intent.      

  

  ** _Breakfast…_**

****

Regina sipped her coffee and smirked. It had taken her only a few moments to realise why Emma had been so skittish when she had come across them in the hallway. Regina _may_ have been milking it a bit over breakfast before Daniel had pointedly leaned down and bit her on the neck to remind her that he was the only one with the right to do so.

Regina had laughed and then Emma had seemed to catch on that she was being toyed with and had scowled at Regina.

Regina’s response had been to run her tongue over her teeth and grin broadly.

Still, breakfast had passed relatively incident free and Regina had managed to keep Mal in good spirits by introducing her to the waffle maker and assuring her that one could be bought for her.

Mal, as a dragon, had never much bothered with human food until she had come to Storybrooke in fact. She had eaten with Regina and Rumple of course, but even then it had been raw meat. She had always preferred to switch to her natural form and rend and tear a carcass roasted with her fiery breath. It was quicker and more efficient.

E numbers, however, seemed to be something that Mal could grow affectionate for. That and syrup. The more practiced Mal came to be with the human form, the more similar it became to true human, that included tastebuds that could actually appreciate sweet things.

She might gain absolutely zero nutritional value from it (obligate carnivore that she was) but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy waffles, donuts, cake and peanut butter M&M’s.

So Mal was on something like her sixth helping of waffles drowning in syrup before Henry made a sleepy eyed appearance.

“Maleficent!” His face lit up and Mal froze with her fork caught between her teeth, brows rising. “You changed your mind about Operation Kingfisher!”

“I did?” Mal looked at Regina who nodded firmly. “I did.”

“Cool.” Henry hopped up to sit on the free stool at the breakfast bar. “Where do you want to start? I think we should narrow down where Cobalt might be living now in the Enchanted Forest. Then we could try and aim the portal as near as possible to that.”

Mal tilted her head and looked sideways at Regina.

“Just accept that this is happening.” Regina drained her coffee cup. “Your life will be easier that way.”

Mal frowned a little at that but turned back to Henry.

“Go on.”

“I was thinking about it last night; there are weak points between worlds, like Lake Nostos over there and the Well here in Storybrooke and it will obviously be easier to use one of those, but what if there are _other_ weak points?”

“Like where?” Regina joined the conversation, officially interested.

Emma’s superpower might be seeing through a lie at five hundred paces but Henry’s seemed to be seeing what other people didn’t. The accuracy of which was usually in direct relation to how _little_ said other people didn’t want him to see such things.

“The clock.” Henry looked at her as if it was obvious and Regina realised that he had inherited that habit from her and it was _incredibly_ annoying. She waved at him to continue. “Well, when the curse was breaking, the clock was the first thing that began to move in time again. Aside from me anyway.” Henry hesitated when he suddenly realised what he was talking about and who he was talking about it to. “I mean…”

“We’ve been over this, Henry. The curse had to be broken. Go on.” Regina smiled for him and he gusted a relieved sigh.

“Well, I was also thinking about how things are connected between the worlds. Like, Lake Nostos connected to the water of the well. It’s not that they’re separate springs of water that give back something that’s been lost but they both come from the same magical source.”

“He’s clever this one.” Mal looked over at Regina.

“I saw him first.” Regina reminded her and yelped when Daniel’s arm slid around her waist and he hoisted her up off the stool so he could sit.

Henry had stolen his after all and he needed very few excuses to have Regina sit on him as it was. He clattered his plate of breakfast down onto the work surface and settled Regina onto his lap. She looked harassed for a moment and then swung her legs sideways over his and her arm around the back of his neck to sit more comfortably.  

Henry continued as if nothing had happened. He was more than used to Daniel and his mom’s matinee performances.

“So there must be points of sameness between the Enchanted Forest and here. If the clock is one of them then the place in FTL must be similar in some way.”

“Eff-tee-ell?” Mal looked to Regina for an explanation.

“Letters of the English alphabet in an acronym. F-T-L standing for Fairy Tale Land.”

“I personally would have gone for Motherland.” Mal said mildly and Henry either didn’t understand or willed himself not to.

“Hah! Momland. I’m calling it that now.” He grinned toothily. “So I was thinking; the clock tower is probably connected to someplace else high up. It’s the tallest building in Storybrooke, anyway. So maybe a castle or a tower.”

“There are more than a few of those in…Momland, boy.”

“Yeah,” Henry held up a finger on each hand, “ _but_ the clock tower is filled with machinery. The cogs of the clock. AND it’s sitting on top of a library. So maybe someplace that’s tall, filled with machines or maybe the equivalent like enchanted items and a whole heap of knowledge like spell books and stuff.”

He looked between Mal and his mom and bit his lip.

“What do you think?”

“I think you already know what the clock tower could be attached to.” Regina fed Daniel a bit of toast and he nipped her fingers with his teeth when he took it.

“The…Dark One’s castle?” Henry bit his lip. “Is that…more dangerous?”

“Not for me.” Mal licked syrup from her lip and considered for a long moment. “Rumple has caused me trouble in the past but that has been of a more…manipulative nature.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.” Daniel muttered darkly. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into eating him?”

“It wouldn’t take much.” Mal glanced at Regina.

 Now that she was her whole self and actually capable of returning the _feeling_ that Regina felt for her as her closest friend…Rumple had a LOT to answer for when it came to the wilful and malicious way that he had plied himself to shattering Regina into his own personal toy. Mal intended to collect, with interest, and a low growl of satisfaction rumbled from her when she knew that she was one of the few creatures that could do so with impunity.

_She_ didn’t have a True Love to be used against her. She was burdened only with protecting herself and she had an abundance of magic and scales with which to do so.

 Still, she lightened her tone and turned back to Henry.

 “Well thought out. Not many fledglings have more brains than a box of hair never mind theorising on how to cross between worlds.”

“Mom taught me how to solve my own problems…which kind of got us into this in the first place.” He rubbed at his arm guiltily for a moment. He heaved in a deep breath and summoned a smile. “Still, I figure it’s a start and I was thinking…maybe we don’t have to rely on just magic.”

“ _Just_ magic?” Mal arched a brow. “ _I_ am ‘just’ magic.”

“I meant,” Henry hurried to explain, “that it’s not the only thing we can use and that magic isn’t as strong in the rest of this world as it is in Storybrooke. Storybrooke is _teeny_ in relation to the rest of the planet, like, point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, ZERO, and a half per cent. The rest of this world is made up of science. You guys use magic words and stuff, but this world uses numbers and science. So, maybe…Hyde…could help?”

Henry looked warily at Daniel who chewed thoughtfully and mulled it over.

He was in no hurry to tell Henry that Hyde had retreated somewhere deep inside him and didn’t appear to be talking to him at that moment but Daniel knew the monster wasn’t _gone_. He would be there if Daniel needed him and he would more than likely be convinced by Regina’s wiles, if she got the chance, to do whatever she asked of him.

“Hyde’s crossed worlds before.” Daniel tilted his head. “I don’t know how, but he’s done it more than once. Maybe he can help.”

“Ah, but will he?” Mal arched a brow.

“We can only ask.” Daniel shrugged his shoulders. “Though, I’m finishing breakfast before I do anything so strenuous.”

“So…you propose to build a machine to cross worlds?” Mal turned back to Henry.

“A machine powered by magic.” Henry nodded and Mal considered a long moment.

“That is _very_ clever.” She narrowed her eyes. “Almost too clever.”

“Stow you’re paranoia, Mal. I taught Henry to actually _think_ about things. It’s easy to appear the genius when everyone else doesn’t bother to. He’s looked at the problem, taken in all the factors and put them together.” Regina smiled at Henry. “Very clever indeed, but nothing sinister about it.”

“I do not like machines.” Mal was mollified by that explanation a little but wasn’t entirely convinced. You didn’t live to tolerate your three thousandth birthday without having developed a healthy aversion to anything you didn’t immediately understand.

“The waffle maker is a machine.” Henry shrugged and Regina snorted in amusement.

“Well met.” Mal murmured and smiled. She turned to Regina. “He is a suitable heir.”

“I could have told you that.” Regina stole some of Daniel’s coffee.

“So you think it’s a good idea?” Henry looked between them. “A place to start.”

“It is a very good place to start.” Mal hummed. She clacked her claws against the edge of her plate and glanced over at Regina. “You have something like your vault here? A place where we might theorise?”

“I use the kitchen sometimes.” Regina shrugged.

“You conjure where you cook?” Mal’s brows rose.

“I _theorise_ where I cook.” Regina corrected her. “I use the windows instead of a blackboard.” She decided not to mention the torque incident.

Mal frowned and Regina smirked.

“You will be introduced to dry markers as soon as we are dressed. I take it amongst all the architecture yesterday that you didn’t think to fashion clothes?”

“This again?” Mal rolled her eyes.

“This frequently.” Regina reminded her and the dragon growled.

“I got it!” Henry hurled himself from his stool so quickly he nearly knocked it over and had to jink madly to the side to miss Emma when she came wandering back into the kitchen.

“Whoa! Where’s the fire?!” She dodged Henry but he didn’t answer her, already racing for the stairs. Emma turned back to the inhabitants of the kitchen. “What’s up with him?”

“I don’t know.” Regina frowned a little and then focussed on Emma once more. “If you’re hungry; eat.”

“Oh, thank god.” Emma made a beeline for the fridge and began to rummage. “I’ll get groceries in asap. I know I’m eating a lot.”

“I’ll write a list.” Regina promised.

She didn’t begrudge Emma the food, it wasn’t like she ate in proportion to her size anymore anyway. On any given day, she usually ate about half her weight and most of it high calorie. Add Daniel to that, a growing boy, a wolf that occasionally mooched for food when he didn’t want to hunt and a dragon that was probably about to become a regular feature…they were going to have to take the shopping in shifts.  

“Awesome.” Emma turned, crunching into an apple enthusiastically. “Is this still because I’m all magic hungover or is it something you do to the food?”

“You mean cook with talent?” Regina tilted her head and Emma wasn’t given a chance to respond.

“Get _off!”_ She sidled away from George when he headbutted her leg. “I just spent twenty minutes petting you!”

George sat down and looked up at her with big sad eyes, his ears tilted sideways.

“Fine.” Emma grumbled and sat down exactly where she was, leaning against the fridge. “I’m not going to fall for that every time though.”

George snuffed a sound of triumph and flopped down to sprawl beside her on the tiles. He looked up at the apple with interest and Emma leaned away to continue eating it.

“No.” She told him firmly and George whined again. “I mean it, you already tricked me out of half my freaking breakfast.”

George rested his head on her lap and looked up at her with those huge sad eyes again.

“No.”

His tail wagged weakly against the floor and Emma turned her attention to things other than the wolf when she could feel her willpower beginning to crumble.

“So! What’s the plans for today?”

“We’re going to build a machine to cross worlds.” Regina lounged more comfortably against Daniel. “You?”

Emma blinked at her and belatedly yanked the apple out of George’s reach when he lifted his head and attempted to shuffle close enough to lick it.

“You, uh, want me to write up a permit for that?”

“If it makes you feel better.” Regina shrugged a shoulder. “Speaking of, who is in charge of the Station?”

She kept her voice carefully neutral but Emma smiled, clearly hearing the interest in Regina’s voice anyway. She might have been distracted by her oldest enemy’s return, dragons, castles, dinners out and…Daniel, but she needed at least thirty seven things to think about in order to keep from getting bored and she was currently running at a deficit.

“I’m on call.” Emma shifted onto her hip so she could show the radio clipped to her belt on the other side. “Ruby’s manning the fort. She okay by the way? She was a little squirrely this morning.”

“She’s fine.” Regina told her firmly and Emma’s brows rose.

Message received.

Shut the fuck up, Emma.

“Got them!” Henry slithered back into the kitchen, a pair of jeans and a tee shirt in his hands, magic trailing from them and him.

All four adults and wolf looked at him.

“Clothes, for Maleficent.” Henry waved them as if to illustrate. “It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to make them bigger without blowing them up, but I got it. They shouldn’t fall apart.” He trotted over to Mal and deposited them over her lap when she didn’t seem to realise she had to take them from him.

“Henry, I was going to loan…”

“You hate people taking your clothes.” Henry dismissed it.

“That’s your favourite tee shirt.” Regina nodded to the bright orange Iron Man shirt that Henry had given to Mal. It was the one with the gold leaf on it that picked out the highlights of the hero’s armour and the energy blasts that flew from each hand.

“I’ve got others.” Henry shrugged and decided not to mention that he’d actually gone through four shirts before he’d figured the spell out.

Regina opened her mouth to argue further and then shook her head.

“Mal, you might as well wear them.”

“I’m already wearing something.” Mal frowned.

“They’re a gift.” Regina told her firmly. “Appreciate them.”

“Thank you.” Mal understood gratitude at least.

Henry beamed at her and she was a little puzzled but decided not to ask what she had done to deserve such affection. Maybe she should just appreciate it.

She slipped down off the stool and Regina realised where this was going when Mal looked down to study the knot at her waist.

“You can change in the bathroom!” Regina nearly lunged across the distance separating them in order to stop the dragon just ripping the robe off when she couldn’t figure out the knot.  

“I won’t fit.” Mal frowned. Now she was really confused.

“Clothes, Mal. Change your _clothes_ in the bathroom.” Regina enunciated firmly.

“Oh.” Mal’s chin kicked up in a nod. “That makes much more sense.”

“I’ll, uh, show you where it is.” Emma levered herself to her feet and finally caved, giving George the apple core she’d been trying to hold out of his reach.

She led Mal from the room and tried not to let her smirk turn into a laugh.

“Can I watch?”

“ _What?!”_ Regina whipped her head around to stare at Henry.

“You and Maleficent doing the hoodoo calculations.” Henry frowned. “Can I watch you two figure it out?”

Regina elbowed Daniel in the ribs when he wrapped both arms around her and snickered into her neck.

“Yes.” She huffed out a breath. “I suppose so.”

“Great! In here with the windows? I’ll find the marker pens!” Henry bounced gleefully off to prepare for some vigorous calculations. He was going to need something to sit on and a notepad to take down stuff he understood and…

Regina huffed out a harried sigh and then elbowed Daniel again when he began to nibble.

“Stop that.”

“No.” His hand began to travel up the smooth skin of her thigh to toy with the shirt she wore.

“We have company and –whilst I know Mal won’t mind in the slightest- there is a limit when it comes to the Saviour and my son walking in on us.” Regina attempted to squirm away from him.

Admittedly, she didn’t try very _hard_ but at least there was a token effort.

“Then take us somewhere private.” Daniel nuzzled under the collar of her shirt. “You were too boneless to play with me last night, I want my turn.”

Regina stiffened when she thought of who had replaced him and he drew away a little. He frowned.

“Hyde didn’t hurt you, did he?” He cupped her face and turned her so she had to look at him. “Did he?”

“No. He didn’t. I swear to you he didn’t.” She circled his wrist with her fingers. She looked him right in the eye to show her sincerity.

“He did something.”

“He didn’t do something.” Regina leaned into his hand and closed her eyes. She let loose a slow sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“Things usually are around him.” Daniel rubbed his thumb back and forth over her cheek. “You still want to talk to him about it first?”

“I think I should.” Regina nodded, biting her lip and bracing herself for…whatever it was he was going to do.

“Okay.” Daniel pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Okay?” She was a little incredulous.

“Okay.” He shrugged. “You told me from the beginning that there were four of us in this relationship and I accepted that. I know that when you want to tell me that you will. I trust you.”

“Oh.” Regina mulled that over. Trying to turn it to an angle so she understood the shape of that thought.

“Of course, I reserve the right to –of occasion- demand audience with the Evil Queen.” He ran his tongue over his teeth and his eyes glittered. “There’s just something about those dresses that demand I remove them with my teeth.”

Regina looked at him brows raised and he smirked. He had such a look of dark promise to him that she couldn’t fight down a shiver of anticipation.

“Remind me later,” she murmured, “I don’t believe I’ve shown you the vault yet.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth and he needed no further invitation.

His lips slanted over hers, tongue thrusting into her mouth and his fingers spearing into her hair. He pulled her head back, deliberately tugging too hard and she gasped for him. She bit his lip grazing with her teeth, both arms sliding up around his neck and…

“Oh, so I can’t walk around naked but _you_ can mate amongst the breakfast dishes?!”

 Regina and Daniel broke apart and Regina leaned over a little to arch a look at Mal. She stood in her borrowed clothes which did fit her surprisingly well and she had apparently taken Regina up on the offer of a bra she had conjured to the bathroom.

Emma stood behind her, her mouth pressed into a white line, looking up at the ceiling and trying not to laugh.

“That was _not_ what we were doing. You and I are going to have to have a talk about how that kind of thing happens between humans.” Regina didn’t release Daniel from her hold and he didn’t remove his hand from the hem of her underwear beneath the shirt.

It was his damn house, the rest of them could leave if they didn’t like the show.

“Why –by all the gods- would I want to know how you little pink wafers reproduce?”

“Oh, you never know, it might become pertinent someday.” Regina spoke mildly and it flew completely over Mal’s head.

“It can’t be as enjoyable as dragon sex.” Mal dismissed it. “I mean, look, there’s only two of you.”

Emma snorted and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Yes, but an educated human male can satisfy a human female multiple times. No extra partners required…unless he asks nicely.”

“Wait,” Daniel perked up, “I can ask for that?”

“Depends on who you’re asking for, dear.” Regina’s nails raked the back of his neck and he smirked.

Still, she hadn’t said no.

“What?” Mal stared. “You can…” She looked between Regina and Emma and back again. “That’s something you can do?”

“Not all of us can breathe fire.” Regina shrugged.

“WHY HAS THIS NEVER BEEN MENTIONED BEFORE?!” Mal threw up her hands.

“You’re three thousand years old, you didn’t once ever think to ask why we were all so preoccupied with sex?”

“You’re barely out of the trees! You can’t even fly! Why would I think that you were evolved to the point of being so enjoyable?” Mal looked harassed. Truly, she had been missing OUT.

“You’re getting old, gecko. Perhaps you’ve lost your taste for it.” Regina needled and her brows rose at the draconian response that sparked black from behind Mal’s teeth. “Okay, that might be true about my mother, but I really don’t think the pig would stay still for that kind of thing.”

Mal only growled and Regina snickered.

“Well, as fascinating as this is, there’s machines to be built and food to be bought.” Daniel stood up and slung Regina over his shoulder with a yelp from her. “And my wife needs to be dressed.”

“Seriously?!” Emma watched them go by and Regina just grinned at her.

“You nettle me with this foolishness.” Mal scowled and folded her arms over her chest.

“Foolishness?” Daniel swung around to frown at Mal. “But Milady Dragon, I am an educated man.” He spoke with such a practiced innocence that Regina laughed all the way up the stairs.

Mal fumed, literally, and Emma planted her hands on her hips.

“Sickening, isn’t it?”

Mal growled.

“Jealousy is a terrible thing.” Her voice was an ominous rumble.

“Well…at least your eyes are already green.” Emma said brightly and, when Mal wrinkled her nose in obvious confusion, she burst out laughing.

Mal scowled at her and then, after a moment, she smiled too.

Ah, to be young and in love…Mal must truly be mended.

For she didn’t begrudge her friend the things Mal would never have at all.

 

**_Later…_ **

 

Henry sat on the now cleared island worktop and swung his legs back and forth, watching his mom and Maleficent work.

More accurately, watching them bicker.

“It will NOT!” Regina glared at Mal.

“Yes. It shall. If you put that much power into what is essentially a mallet shattering the barrier between dimensions then - _yes_ \- all of time and space may rupture.” Mal folded her arms over her chest with a thud.

“It’s hardly a mallet.” Regina grumbled and turned back to the French doors covered with scrawled equations and scribbled notes.

There were diagrams and scored out theories, a _lot_ of question marks peppered everywhere and even a small doodle of a self-satisfied dragon with two small human legs poking out of her mouth.

Mom had taken the pen off Mal shortly after that and given the excuse that it was because she couldn’t write in English and Regina didn’t know enough draconian to follow Mal’s theories.

“If you put that much power into it, it will be.”

“It needs a lot of power to get through the barrier.”

“It does not. You are overthinking this. You needn’t swing, only cut.”

“What?”

“Give me the pen.” Mal held out her hand and Regina reluctantly passed it over.

“This is the barrier, yes?” Mal drew a couple of squiggly lines vertically. “This is your machine.” Mal sketched something like a battering ram.

“Hmm.” Regina didn’t look impressed –her design had significantly more élan than such a crude club- but she knew her dragon friend was winding up to something.

“This is my machine.” Mal used her forearm to scrub out the battering ram and drew a rounded curve and a sword on the opposite side of the curve from the barrier.

Regina frowned for a moment and then her brows rose, eyes going wide.

“You want to use the planet?!”

“Why not? It’s going at…a thousand miles an hour?” Mal went still a moment and Henry’s eyes bugged wide when he realised she could _feel_ that. “Why waste the momentum? Fix the point of impact in place and have the world hurl the machine into it. That will save on our power expenditure I think.”

“And blow up the _town!”_ Regina glared at Mal.

“Not so.” Mal arched a brow. “If the blade is keen enough, it should cut clean through with minimal damage to the surrounding area.”

“What’d I miss?” Emma snuck over to join Henry, not that she need have bothered, Mal and Regina were properly getting into an argument now about what the blast radius of hurling something into anything at a thousand miles an hour might incur.

She had just returned from an _extensive_ shopping trip with Daniel and it had taken them well over two hours to find everything they needed and ferry it all back to the manor. Good thing they’d been able to sneak the Mercedes’ keys to do so as it probably would have taken four trips in the Bug. She had been milling around in the background, putting everything in the cupboards for about ten minutes and she was now free to watch the grownups talk. Daniel had left them to it and gone off to do whatever it was he did when he felt the need to avoid the women in the house that outnumbered him so grossly.

Still, Emma appreciated Daniel even more with his green-eye trick. One flash of that and he’d been able to send whoever it was that was bothering Emma scurrying. She hadn’t needed it too often but she’d never been such a focus of attention before. Now that everyone knew who she was and who her parents were and that she’d broken the curse…Emma was not built for a life of celebrity. Fortunately for her, Daniel seemed to sense when she needed space and used his particular brand of antisocial behaviour to get it.

There were definite advantages to being on Team Reggie, that was for sure.

“Uh…far as I can tell, not much.” Henry smiled at Emma when she hopped up to sit on the worktop beside him. “The main theme seems to be cutting through to Momland but they keep growling at each other that they’re a) working too hard and going to tire themselves out doing it or b) gonna end up blowing a chunk out of the planet where Storybrooke used to be.”

“Oh.” Emma’s brows rose and her mouth twisted. “I knew I shouldn’t have signed that permit.”

She grinned when Henry giggled at that and the sound made her think that perhaps she wasn’t a complete fucking failure as a parent. If she could make him laugh then that had to count for something.

“This is just planning stages though. Mostly they’re just insulting one another and doodling.”

“We are NOT doodling.” Regina arched a brow at him, not unaware of Emma’s presence. “Some of these are very complex equations.”

“Is that including the cartoon of Maleficent eating Mister Gold ooorrrr…?” Emma shrugged her shoulders.

“How did you know it was Rumple?” Mal propped her hands on her hips and studied the picture. A decent likeness of herself, certainly, but there were only legs to be seen of her victim.

“No heels, not Regina, and Gold’s one of the few people you know enough to hate in this town.” Emma hunched her shoulders in a shrug.

“Question!” Henry perked up and smiled when Mal turned to him. “Do you have a halfway form?”

“I’m not half of anything.” Mal told him archly.

“I mean, can you take a shape that’s kind of human but with all the advantages of being a dragon? Like…those big disembowelling claws, and the scales and spines and wings and stuff. The tail would be pretty cool too.”

“Why…would I want to?”

“Well,” Henry shifted and sat on his hands, his mouth twisting, obviously he hadn’t thought he’d needed a reason, “you’d be smaller and faster. It might be better for fighting a single human shaped opponent. You’d be wearing an armour that doesn’t weigh anything, you’re hands and feet would be weapons you wouldn’t have to wield, the spines and frills would protect your back, your wings would give you the high ground no matter what and your tail –while not prehensile- is still flexible enough to knock someone’s body off their head.”

“I can do all of that as a dragon.” Mall shrugged.

“True, but if someone was brave enough and quick enough, they could get under your guard and catch you in the gut. In a smaller and faster shape, that wouldn’t happen. I’m not saying for armies, I was just thinking if you had to go one on one with someone then it might be a better tactic.” Henry’s mouth twisted as he considered further. “That and you might have an easier time of channelling magic through your talons rather than just breathing it. It’d give you more options.”

Mal cocked her head at him but Regina cut him off at the pass.

“She’s not doing it here so you can try and copy the spell to give yourself wings.”

Henry huffed out a breath, foiled.

“I was just thinking that it might be easier to fly rather than teleport. If I have to run away –which you seem so adamant I learn first- flying would be quicker, yeah?”

“I have no desire to come home one day and find you ten feet tall because you decided to try and lighten your density with no idea as to how.” Regina told him firmly.

“Well, if he had wings but the same mass, surely it would be spread out over a much wider area and he’d be light enough to fly then- -and I’m going to stop talking now.” Emma finished on a smile and a nod of her head when Regina’s expression became ominous.

“Hey, that would work!” Henry beamed at her and Regina growled louder than even Mal had.

“NO.” She crossed the room to stand over Henry. “I mean it, Henry. Shifting your physical form is _serious_ magic. It seems effortless when Mal does it because she’s been practicing for centuries and –believe me- this is not a spell you want to get wrong. Terrible things happen to people that try to shapeshift without knowing how. Explosive inside-out kind of things.”

“Ooh.” Henry wrinkled his nose. That didn’t sound very cool at all.

Regina let loose a sigh.

“But, hey, I’m only your mother. Why listen to me?”

“Don’t be like that.” Henry frowned at her, looking almost hurt. “I won’t do it. I just…you said you wouldn’t teach me the good stuff until I learned how to get away really fast if I had to. I just wanna do that so I can learn how to do the cool stuff.”

“And what’s the cool stuff?” Regina shrugged her shoulders, not understanding.

“And who are we running away from?” Emma looked a little alarmed.

“I’m really powerful, mom says, but I’m just a little kid and some people might want to use me when they figure out what I have the potential to be. So mom and David decided that I should learn how to run away first before I learned how to fight back. Though that was a bit of a mixed message because then mom and Gramps had a duel on Main Street and mom died and gramps cheated so I was told not to do violence and then given a pretty good demonstration.” Henry frowned. Now that he’d thought on it, that had been pretty weird for his mom to do that.

“You…died?” Emma looked at Regina.

She genuinely had no idea how to take that since she’d been under the impression that death was pretty much nature’s way of saying ‘cheque, please’ but then Daniel and Regina being…Regina…so she wasn’t ruling anything out.

“I was acting.” Regina waved it away and focussed on Henry again. “You will note that, without using magic, I disarmed Prince Charming. I am a very dangerous person, Henry, and I learned from very dangerous people. Even in play, I could have easily slain your grandfather without even conjuring something so much as a basket to drop his head in. You don’t have to have superpowers to be dangerous. That was what I was trying to show you.”

“Oh and it had nothing to do with socking Gramps in the jaw and then kicking him in the butt?”

“Those were bonuses.” Regina smirked and then she let loose a slow sigh and sobered a little. “I’ll teach you something tomorrow. Something ‘cool’ that will both teach you how to run away and perhaps satisfy your need to terrorise yourself.”

“Excellent!” Henry threw up his hands and cheered.

Regina rolled her eyes and turned to look back at Mal who was standing growling at the equations on the window.

“If you break my window, you’re replacing it.” Regina warned her.

“I’m allowed to be frustrated.” Mal rumbled. “This is all too…explosive.” She waved vaguely at the plans they had made. “Tearing through the walls between worlds is always a dangerous endeavour. _Especially_ when there isn’t a suitable area of dead land to contain the fallout.”

“We-ell…don’t tear it?”

Regina and Mal both twisted to look at Emma and she shifted a little uncomfortably under their combined regard.

“I mean, when Snow and David sent me here, they didn’t tear anything apart; they built a door. Why don’t you guys do that? Build a door and a key and that might be less…explodey?” Emma trailed off uncertainly when Regina and Mal just continued to watch her.

Regina was the first to break it.

“Oh my god, I _am_ stupid for a genius!” She threw up her hands and spun on Mal. “A _doorway_. Why didn’t we think of that?”

“Uhm…my fight or flight instinct is stuck on fight? Not to mention that you’re a murderous psychopath who’s never much been one for taking the front door when you can explode into any room in a suitable show of pyrotechnics and leather.”

“Well, you’re hardly one to talk.” Regina grumbled. “Though it begs the question…where are we going to get an enchanted tree?”

“What about the one Emma came through?” Henry piped up. “It’s outside the town borders but…Emma and I can cross the town line. So can Daniel probably, and Maleficent. We could go and get it and bring it back.”

“Really? A centuries old pine and you’re just going to sling it over your shoulder and trot right on back here? We don’t even have an exact location for it.” Regina decided to ignore how terrorising the idea of Henry and Daniel going beyond the town lines was for her.

“Not…precisely true.” Emma volunteered. “I’ve been there.”

“Yes, when you were a child.” Regina scowled at her.

“No, actually…August took me. Before the curse broke. I’ve been there. I could find it again.” Emma pressed her lips together but didn’t back down when Regina’s glare became a little terrifying.

“Of course. He did.” Regina gritted.

“I’m just saying, if that’s your best bet, it’s not an impossible thing.” Emma shrugged.

“You’d need something to fell it and a way to cut it down to size in order to ship it back here.” Regina pointed out and followed Emma’s gaze when her eyes drifted to Mal.

“There’s an idea.” Mal arched a brow. “I could easily carry a tree in my natural form.”

“There’s no magic outside of Storybrooke, you wouldn’t be able to do any spells.”

“And yet, I shall still be a sixty pace long sentient reptile that would take extreme exception to having anything happen to my travelling companions.”

Regina looked between them all for a long moment and then scowled.

“Fine.” She snapped. “You two; go and find the tree, but you will be _careful_ and you will not be seen.”

“Obviously.” Emma scowled at being spoken to like she was a child. Okay, so she was in comparison to Regina and definitely to Maleficent but she’d been looking after herself pretty well up until now.

The only problems seemed to arise when she had to look after someone else.

“ _You_ aren’t going with them.” Regina told Henry firmly when he opened his mouth to beg permission. He scowled, crestfallen, but brightened a bit when she finished. “You’ll be too busy learning magic from me.”

Regina looked around the room and scowled.

“You’re all being very inconvenient.”

“You’d be bored without us.” Emma smirked and, before Regina could retort. “Hungry? Daniel and I bought a metric butt-tonne of food.”

Regina clipped her teeth together and then narrowed her eyes.

“I know when I’m being manipulated.”

“And yet, you’re still going to fall for it.” Emma grinned at her.

“You’d better have bought more Oreos.” Regina grumbled and headed for the doorway to find the kitchen.

She _was_ hungry.       


	45. Chapter 45

**Chapter 45 – The Cool Stuff**

**_The Town Border…_ **

 

“This is a terrible idea.” Regina murmured, displeased on multiple levels.

She was dressed entirely in leather, her hair swept back and her makeup minimal, but still looked like she could take over the planet if that afternoon turned out particularly boring for her.

Emma frowned a little. She didn’t much like that Regina seemed to do so effortlessly. How was she ever supposed to be a good Sheriff if Regina went around looking like _that_ and making it abundantly clear that she was going to do whatever the fuck she wanted no matter what Emma said or did?

Sure, Regina was behaving but Emma knew that was only because it suited her to do so. As soon as she got the idea that something needed to be done and she was under the impression that it needed to be done by her –no matter the danger or broken laws involved- she’d be off doing it before she thought to inform Emma that something was in the offing.

Emma pressed her lips together. She was going to have to start being _useful_ if she wanted to be good at her job. She might not be able to control Regina but if she was…closer to her, then maybe she could aim her in the right direction.

Emma mulled that over further. That sounded incredibly patronising even in her own head. Regina would likely take her hand off her face –again- if she picked up on such musings but…Emma was sick of being useless.

Regina was still Mayor in everything but name –the town would have fallen apart without _somebody_ running it this past month- but Emma was supposed to be one of the people that –if not acted as a foil to Regina- was her equal.

Emma was beginning to think less and less of living up to her family name and more about living up to her own standards. She was going to _start_ by meeting her job description. Regina had helped up until now (since the return from ‘Momland’ certainly) maybe she would continue to do so. Maybe if she saw that Emma was trying…

That was a lot of maybes.

Emma let loose a slow sigh and blinked when she realised she was the centre of attention.

“What?”

“Do try and pay attention, Emma.” Regina drawled. “Mal has no idea where she’s going and I’d much rather she not end up in Oregon before you cotton to the fact that you’re lost.”

“It’s not that far away.” Emma defended herself. Yeah, so she wanted Regina’s help, but she wasn’t likely to tell _her_ that. “I can find it, even through the woods. My sense of direction is pretty good and Mal being able to tell where North is no matter what means I’ll always have a compass. It’s about four miles thataway which means it’ll take me about an hour to walk there. I figure my handy scaled CAT digger should yank it out toot-sweet and another hour back.” Emma waved at Mal.

Regina frowned a little, evidently surprised.

“What?” Emma demanded. “Run away often enough and you learn to travel off-road pretty quickly.” Emma stalled when she noticed Henry looking up at her.

“You ran away a lot?”

Emma swallowed hard. This was definitely not the time or place to have this conversation and she definitely didn’t want to have it for the first time with Henry. She shifted uncomfortably and pressed her lips together when Regina spun away and drew Mal into a conversation about what she should and shouldn’t do once she was outside the borders of Storybrooke.

Despite all that, Emma heard the unspoken question crystal clear.

_Are you running away again?_

“Hey, kid,” Emma bent at the waist and caught her hands on her knees as she’d seen Regina do so often for Henry in the past, “I’m coming back. You always came back from one of your operations, I’m going to come back from this one.”

“You…sure?” Henry’s mouth twisted and he looked down at the toe of his boot scuffing at the road.

“I’m certain.” Emma caught her knuckle under his chin and tilted his face up to look at her. “I just found you, kiddo. I spent a month in Momland fighting ogres, giants and witches-oh-my to get back to you, I’m not gonna have that be for nothing. I _promise_ I’m coming back.”

“In a couple of hours?”

“In a couple of hours.” Emma smiled for him and it hurt a little to see him just watch her and commit to nothing. “You don’t trust me at all, do you?”

“I…” Henry opened his mouth to deny it and then looked down again. He mumbled into the neck of his sheepskin jacket. “I want to.”

Emma dropped down into a crouch so it was harder for him to look away from her.

“I want you to trust me too.”

“Just…stop leaving me, ‘kay?”

“Sometimes I might have to.”

“Mom doesn’t.”

Emma’s jaw clenched and she stared at nothing for a moment. She decided not to say that Regina likely _couldn’t_ leave him. Not once had she volunteered to cross the town line and get the tree herself and…Emma’s jaw rocked to the side when she realised Regina hadn’t wanted to leave because she needed to stay with Henry.

“Okay, how about this; I’ll stop making promises. I’ll just keep…doing what I’m doing and –when you trust me- you can make me a promise first, okay?”

Henry frowned, heaving in a deep breath as he thought that over.

“Emma.”

Emma lifted her head when Regina tentatively broke into the conversation. She must have heard every word but she didn’t acknowledge it at all and Emma realised that was because she knew exactly how it felt to have their son brace himself for a betrayal from one of them. How much of a kick in the gut it was for him to draw away and internalise himself, ready to survive whatever pain was dealt to him.

“I gotta go.” Emma straightened up and Henry hesitated before hurling his arms around her and squeezing tight. She hugged him back, growing more comfortable with doing so and spoke into his hair. “I won’t be long.”

Henry let go of her and said nothing.

Emma sighed and turned for the town line.

“Well, let’s get this show on the road.” She forced her tone to be lighter than she felt and Mal nodded sharply to her.

Magic plumed from her and it was a moment of swirling green before she reappeared in her huge natural form. She shifted, rattling her scales and shuffling her wings against her back. She looked towards the invisible barrier of the spell that covered the town and snorted in distaste.

Just another cage.

The sooner they got the tree, the sooner she could go home.

For she had no intention of coming back to this drab little world. There was nothing here for her.

Her eyes betrayed her and drifted down to Regina.

Well, perhaps not _nothing_.

And there was always eating Rumple. She’d yet to do that and…

Mal shied away from thoughts of the little wolf. Regina’s assurances of it all being in Ruby’s head aside, Mal had a few millennia’s worth of evidence proving that she always had been and always would be –first and foremost- something to be feared.

Not even other dragons had trusted her enough to bite their throats.

Mal huffed a sigh and was suddenly eager to be gone.

 **“I shall go first. If something ill happens to me…let Gina deal with it.** ”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you, you melodramatic scaled miscreant.” Regina rolled her eyes. “You survived in this world without magic for twenty eight years without anything happening to you. Worst comes to it, your magic internalises and you can’t fly or breathe fire. Just…hurry back before you use up your internal stores of magic.”

Mal snorted but said nothing more and –before she could think better of it- slunk across the town line without further ado.

She braced herself for…something but felt nothing.

The world seemed a little heavier, a little colder, but that was it. It smelled…greasier. More noxious somehow though not intolerably so.

Turning back to nod to Emma and indicate all was well with her, she froze. The spines and frills around her head flared wide in surprise when she saw the road empty behind her. She blinked, even the car was gone.

She felt a spike of panic when she thought she had been abandoned and pounced back for the barrier, sliding through it as seamlessly as she had left it and slithering to a halt when Emma shrieked in surprise and Regina hauled both her and Henry bodily out of the way.

“Mal!” She scolded.

 **“You disappeared.** ” Mal defended herself.

“Oh. That.” Regina rolled her shoulders with the air of someone settling hackles she didn’t have at the moment. “It’s a side effect of the border spell. People can come in but…they don’t know anyone’s here until they actually get through the barrier.”

“ **Mentioning that might have been an idea.”** Mal growled.

“Yes, yes, now get. You’re wasting daylight.” Regina shooed and Mal rolled her eyes, turning away and slinking through the barrier again, deliberately settling her spines so she no longer looked as ruffled as she felt.

Emma huffed out a breath at nearly having been gooshed into a meat pancake beneath dragon claws (again) and started for the barrier after the giant lizard.

She ground to a halt when Regina’s hand closed over her arm. The older woman opened her mouth and then stalled when she didn’t know how to word what she wanted to say. Her fingers tightened a moment on Emma’s sleeve and she let loose a slow breath.

“You can get me on my cell when you get back.”She released Emma’s arm just as quickly as she had gripped it and Emma nodded.

Surprised at the show of trust.

She thought about saying something more to Henry but realised there was nothing more she could say. She let loose a long breath through her nose, squared her shoulders and stepped through the barrier before Mal could come looking for her again.

She wrinkled her nose when she felt the change in pressure between the barrier of the town and out in the…real world. Emma shifted uncomfortably and looked up at Mal.

“Come on.” She jerked her head towards the treeline off the road and led the dragon into the woods.

Mal obediently followed her, absolutely silently, and Emma found that incredibly unnerving. She was as big as a goddamn dinosaur and she made absolutely no sound at all as she stalked along behind Emma. She could feel the dragon’s hot breath gust against the back of her neck, ruffling her hair and she sidestepped quickly so that Mal’s next steps drew her level with Emma.

Mal looked down at her and snorted.

 **“You lasted longer than most would.** ”

Emma looked up at her, faintly surprised that she could still speak, but then she remembered that dragon vocal chords mostly whistled the sounds needed for speech rather than truly spoke them with tongue, teeth and lips.

“It’s the quiet that gave me the heebies.” Emma admitted. “I keep thinking that you should have this big ponderous step that should shake the ground.”

Mal tilted her head.

 **“What good would that be to a predator?** ”

Emma shrugged.

“I dunno. I know we- -you’re fast enough to outrun almost anything I can think of. Hardly matters if they hear you coming or not.”

Mal made a strange grumbling sound and mulled that over.

**“I heard you, the night before last, you wanted to learn how to take your dragon form. To be the gold one again.”**

Emma walked in silence for a long moment and thought about it. Really thought about it.

“It made me feel…I was comfortable. In my own skin.” She snorted a laugh. “And it wasn’t even my own skin.”

 **“Perhaps it is.** ” Mal hummed deep in her throat, a thrumming sound. **“I have heard of some of your kind being born in the wrong body, the wrong gender. More than once some came to me, desperate to be changed, so desperate that they risked the wroth of a dragon. Life in the wrong shape was so interminable to them that they would rather be anything other than what they were. Even if it meant risking death at my jaws. Perhaps you were born as the wrong species. Stranger things have occurred.”**

“What did you do? When they came to you, I mean.”

 **“I tested them**.” Mal cocked her head to the side. **“Summoned a flame that would burn any but those that truly wanted to be different.** ”

“And…if they didn’t truly want it?”

**“They burned.”**

“Oh.” Emma looked down at her feet travelling over the pine needle strewn forest floor. “You eat them?”

**“No. They were charcoal by the time I was done with them. Coal briquettes are as appealing to me as they would be to you.”**

“What’d you do with the ones that really wanted to change?”

Mal was silent for so long that Emma thought she was going to be ignored, but she spoke eventually.

**“I changed them.”**

“All of them?”

**“Every single one.”**

“Huh.” Emma thought that over. “Why?”

 **“I understand well what it is to desire to be something other than what you are.”** Mal admitted after a long moment. She shook herself. **“Either way, perhaps you were meant to be a dragon.** ”

“I’m kind of sick of hearing about everything I was meant to be.” Emma kicked a stone with a venom she hadn’t realised she felt until the pain radiated up from her abused toes all the way to her hip. “It’s hard enough just being me.”

 **“He loves you. It is there for anyone to see.”** Mal didn’t pretend she hadn’t heard the conversation between Emma and Henry. **“He just…needs time. Regina tried her best with him but the tools at her disposal when it came to rearing him were limited to say the least. She has always known how to love, though she learned far too late how it could be turned back upon her.”**

“I met her mom.” Emma nodded and heaved a sigh to try and dislodge a feeling she didn’t want to name from her chest. “Twisted bitch.”

Mal growled in agreement.

Emma was quiet a long moment and then looked up at Maleficent.

“You’re going after Gold, aren’t you?”

Mal continued for a few strides that she dramatically shortened so that Emma might keep up without exhausting herself.

**“Yes.”**

“Is that because he really deserves it or because you can’t get to Cora?”

**“Yes.”**

Emma reached up and scrubbed her hand through her hair. Her jaw clenched and she thought about what she had seen in Cora. About what she saw in Gold far too often. About how those two had been responsible for raising Regina…

Emma might not have had parents until recently but…damn, at least the people she’d had instead hadn’t tried to twist her into their own personal plaything. Shuffling her about a board she hadn’t even been aware of in order to get back at one another over and over and over again…

“You want help?”

Maleficent actually stopped walking and looked down at Emma.

“You didn’t shoot down Henry’s idea of a halfway form. You logged it for later experiments. All the strengths of a dragon in a smaller and faster shape…ideal for fighting Gold, don’t you think?”

Maleficent narrowed her eyes.

“Yeah. I know. Took me a minute or two to realise that Henry had planted the idea in your head on purpose too.”

 **“He is a disproportionately clever boy.”** Mal admitted.

“Yeah. Well. Regina raised him, what did you expect?”

 **“Perhaps he did not _only_ earn such keen observational skills from Regina.”** Mal murmured, studying Emma. **“Nor a certain pragmatism that is always more alarming than any kind of magic.”**

“I have limits.” Emma admitted. “I don’t think I could kill him. Even if he deserves it but I know…I know I don’t want Regina doing it. She’s come a long way. She doesn’t deserve being knocked backwards by him AGAIN.”

Mal huffed out a breath and looked around the trees that surrounded them.

“ **We cannot kill him. There are certain repercussions that…that I do not think even Gina knows of. Her magic is powerful and she has learned much but she has not learned all she should have. She was honed to a fine point for Rumple’s own purposes and –until I know what the exact ramifications of that are- I cannot risk wiping his existence from this world.”**

“Is it the Dark One thing?” Emma tilted her head. “That kind of stuff probably didn’t come about by accident.”

Mal cocked her head and Emma huffed a sigh. She was beginning of getting tired of the impression that she was so stupid she couldn’t have come to these conclusions by herself.

Really, all you had to do was _think_ about it.

“If all magic has a price, then it’s about balance. I imagine the Dark One is a pretty hefty weight on one side of the scales. Remove that and…it might not end so well, no?”

 **“No.”** Mal admitted. She narrowed her eyes. “ **Would you do it?”**

Emma blinked, stiffening and swallowed audibly. She stared at nothing for a long moment and then –incredibly- nodded her head.

“If I had to.”

Mal rocked her head back on her neck and her brows rose. She looked down at Emma for a long moment and hummed that deep rumbling sound in her chest. Sounded kind of like that sound elephants made, Emma thought.

“ **I will remember that.”**

Emma huffed out a slow sigh and nodded. She looked…not saddened but resolved. Maleficent’s respect for this tiny scrap of gold topped wafer grew and grew. She had expected _something_ of an opponent that had managed to defeat _Regina_ but she had not expected this. The will to destroy herself to do what she believed was right.  

“ **What of Henry? Becoming the Dark One would change you beyond all belief. In time, you would not know yourself at all.** ”

“Hey, I didn’t sign up for it. I just said –hypothetically- if there was no other option, then I’d do it. Better me than the alternative.”

**“My question still stands.”**

“Henry doesn’t need me.” Emma forced the admission out. “He wants me. There’s a difference. I’ve already…if True Love really is true then I’ll always love him. No matter what. If I have that, then there’d always be _something_ left of me.”

Emma swallowed hard. This conversation felt uncomfortably like she’d already signed her own death warrant.

Mal seemed to sense her hitting the wall and she swung her head low and lowered herself to the ground.

“ **Get on. This is taking forever with your puny pace.”**

Emma smirked at the out so readily offered and she clambered up to sit at the base of Maleficent’s neck between some of the spines that extended from her vertebrae to run the length of her back.

“That way.” Emma nudged Mal’s neck with her leg and the dragon swung around that direction as she rose to her full height again.

Emma’s eyes widened, this was a lot more alarming when on the puny pinkling side of the equation. She gripped tightly to the spine in front of her and sucked in an alarmed breath when Mal bounded into a lunging and somehow entirely silent run in the direction Emma had pointed her in.

Emma thought about what she had said to Maleficent and wondered how she had been able to admit that to the dragon when she hadn’t even admitted it to herself.

It was an uncomfortable realisation to know how far she was willing to go in order to do the ‘right thing’. What she was willing to destroy in order to do what she felt had to be done.

Exactly how like her parents was she?

 

**_Back in Storybrooke…_ **

****

“Why are we in the middle of nowhere?” Henry looked about himself.

Regina had driven out of town and into the fields beyond. They had hiked through the forest for a bit to find this meadow. His mom was even dressed weird. She wore walking boots rather than her heels, leather pants and a leather jacket. Her hair was swept back from her face and secured with several pins but he thought the oddest thing was perhaps the comic book in her hands.

“Magic.” Regina spoke absently, flipping quickly through the book.

She’d gotten some odd looks from the clerk in the store when she had gone in to pick it up. She’d been able to use the cover of buying it for Henry in order to find the best one to illustrate what she wanted. The subterfuge might not have worked considering the inordinate amount of time she had spent flipping through each book in order to find one that suited her purposes.

She had spent the night previous bookmarking pages, writing down notes in the margins and even doing some quick calculations to adapt the spells for Henry so that he might learn them better in the recalcitrant magic that sulked its way about Storybrooke. It might hold an affection for Regina and Mal but it bucked at Rumple and the faeries still, she knew. Perhaps Henry might be afforded a leniency because he was her son and his magic looked so much like hers, but there was no guarantee.

“Cool stuff?!”

Regina looked up at Henry’s excitement and flashed him a smile.

“Cool stuff.”

“What we gonna do first? Fireballs? Lightning bolts? Ooh, flying!”

“Okay, hold your horses.” Regina held up her hand. “To start, summoning elements is _incredibly_ difficult, not to mention extremely dangerous. I mean it, Henry, never try to do that on your own. It wouldn’t end as well as trying to heal your arm would. Which _still_ could have gone horribly –horribly- wrong. Promise me.”

Henry frowned and looked down at his shoes, mumbling.

“Henry, look at me.”

“You will teach me though?” Henry looked up at her. “When I’m ready. You won’t try and do it for me?”

“Of course.” Regina let the book dip in her hands when she gave him her full attention. “Besides, magic doesn’t work that way. I couldn’t do it for you even if I wanted to.”

“Okay, I promise not to do anything for the first time without you to help me.” He pressed his lips together for a moment and then forced himself to amend that. “I learned my lesson last time.”

“Good.” Regina turned back to the book and tried to find the page she wanted.

“So…what are we gonna do?”

“Ah.” Regina smirked and turned the book so he could see the page she had marked. “This.”

Henry frowned, studying the panels of the Hulk crashing through a city. He looked up at Regina.

“You want me to learn to knock buildings down with my face?”

“No!” Regina looked back at the page and then turned the book to him once more pointing at the panel she meant. “This. The leaping. Fighting with magic is incredibly difficult, I want you to live long enough to learn every nuance so you’re going to learn how to run to safety before anything else.”

“That doesn’t sound very brave.”

“You have to survive in order to be called a coward, Henry. Besides, there is no shame in running if it avoids a pointless death. Yours in particular. If anyone knows the spells involved in finding out how powerful you are, they are someone to be avoided. If _anyone_ approaches you about magic; run. Don’t ask questions, don’t try and be clever, run. Find David, Mal or I and we’ll take it from there.” She looked him right in the eye as she spoke, letting him know she was dreadfully serious and –when he nodded- he seemed to actually mean it.

“Okay, I suppose.”

“Don’t suppose,” Regina studied the book and pursed her lips, “do.”

“So…I’m gonna need strength as well, right?”

Regina looked down at him, arching a brow and waiting for him to elaborate.

“Well, the Hulk can super-leap because he’s so strong and he can survive the impact because he’s invulnerable. If I don’t reinforce my bones and stuff, I’ll be a pancake on the other side.”

“Very good, Henry.” Regina smiled. “I’m glad to see all your pocket money was well spent.” Regina tapped the spine of the book and gathered herself, thinking where to begin. He had saved her several minutes of explanation for all the layers involved in the spell.

“Hold this.” Regina handed him the book. “See that tree over there?” Regina pointed to a towering fir that stood over the rest. It was on the other side of the meadow. Almost a football field away.

“Yeah.” Henry was left talking to himself when Regina suddenly _took off._

One second she had been there, the next she was soaring through the air. Henry’s jaw dropped when she was a tiny figure in the sky, her legs tucked up and her arms out to keep her balance, then she brought her hands forward and landed in the upper branches of the tree. Henry watched the flexible top of the tree bend under her weight, flexing over but not breaking, and weaving back upright again. When she had a firm grip, Regina turned and waved to him.

Henry, a little numb with the shock, waved back.

Gathering herself, Regina balanced and kicked off. The tree trunk whipped back from the force of her push and she bounded gracefully through the air and landed a few feet in front of Henry with a thud, sending up a spray of dirt and turf.

“That was awesome!” Henry bounced forward and grinned up at her.

“That’s the finished product, Henry. That’s probably several lessons away.” Regina dusted her hands off against her leathers, apparently not bothered with the dirt. “That’s what we’re aiming for, keep that goal in your head, okay?”

“Okay,” Henry nodded eagerly, “what first?”

“Reinforcement.” Regina smiled at him. “You were exactly right. The leaping isn’t that hard, it’s the landing that’s difficult. There’s no point in teaching you how to ‘super-leap’ unless you can survive the landing without breaking your legs.”

“That would not be great.” Henry admitted and she laughed.

“No it would not, now, listen to me…”

The next hour or so was spent teaching Henry how to tap into his magic. How to feel the pathways within him and imagine them as a harness to attach spells to. Then she moved on to teaching him the spell required to reinforce his body to withstand a fall like the one she had in mind.

It was a play on a shield charm, he wasn’t actually changing his biology –that was a whole other level of spellcraft- but rather the energy that surrounded him.

Henry, it turned out, was a very keen student. Especially given the temptation she offered him of superpowers.

It wasn’t even two hours before he had mastered the spell even with her knocking him over to surprise him, he kept it in place. She nodded, prepared for the first real test.

“Alright, I’m going to lift you and let you practice the landing, okay?”

Henry suddenly looked nervous. He’d been knocked on his butt several times in the last half hour and had only just managed to hold onto the spell for the last few times. His mom was a good teacher and he didn’t want to disappoint her.

“Hey,” Regina bent and took him by the shoulders, “you’re doing very well. You’re picking this up so fast. You’re good at this, Henry.”

Henry smiled and nodded.

“Okay.”

“Now, this is going to be easier than the other times. You’ll see the fall coming and it’s just like jumping off the swings at the park. Arms out for balance, knees bent on impact, okay?”

Henry nodded.

“You’re sure?”

“Mooomm…”

“Alright.” Regina smiled at him and reached out.

Henry heard the familiar chime of her magic and felt it twine around him, lifting him into the air. She didn’t take him very high, about ten feet. He’d survive the fall just fine even without the spell, but how well he landed would let her know if he could withstand higher.

Henry didn’t need to be told to gather his magic. He’d begun layering the spell around him as soon as she had begun to lift him. With a flick of her fingers, Regina hurled him forward.

Henry yelped, not having expected being flung across a distance rather than being dropped straight down and his arms flew wild for a moment before he got himself under control. He kept the spell, despite his surprise, and nailed the landing with a soft thump.

“Yes!” He jumped up and down, both fists in the air.

“Well done!” Regina laughed and clapped for him. “Very good, Henry.”

“Again!” Henry bounded back to her and she was impressed to note that he was already using the spell in the way she had intended at the other end. Instinctively using it to help him push off further and higher than he could with just his legs alone.

“Alright.” She smiled. “A few times more. I don’t want you to get too tired.”

“I’m not tired. Not at all!”

Regina chuckled at that. He’d revise that opinion in a few minutes. Magic took stamina just like everything else. She’d let him learn the lesson about cutting and renewing spells for as and when he needed them the hard way. He’d begin to feel the burn soon enough.

“Okay, ready?”

Henry nodded, giddy with success, and Regina threw him without any further warning.

He whooped, flying through the air, twice as high and far as she had thrown him before and –this time- he managed it even better. Keeping his balance, even angling himself to miss a divot in the meadow so he had a better landing spot.

“Again!” Henry ran back to her and Regina smiled indulgently.

He actually managed four more jumps before he began to walk back to her rather than run. Still giddy with excitement and willing to do more, but beginning to tire.

“Enough for today.”

“Aww!” Henry pouted and Regina folded her arms over her chest.

“Feel how tired you are in just fifteen minutes? That’s because of the magic. You’ve kept the spell going constantly for the whole time we’ve been working and you’ve exhausted yourself.”

“But, I didn’t know when you were going to throw me.” Henry frowned.

“Yes, honey, but I know you’re quick enough to snap the spell into place between me throwing you and you landing. You can’t keep it up all the time. A big part of magic is knowing when to use it. It’s very powerful, but that means it takes a lot of energy. Use it when you have to. Work smarter not harder.”

“Okay.” Henry’s shoulders were slumping a little and she felt him unwind the spell from around his body. He straightened a little when the weight was removed from him. “That does feel better.”

“I know.” Regina smoothed his hair back. He looked more than a little windswept and he was covered in splattered dirt, as was she.

“Can I learn super-speed too?” Henry suddenly brightened. “I could use the same spell that lets me do the landings to stop the friction burning me.”

Clever boy, Regina mused to herself.

“How will you compensate for your reactions? Even going as fast as a car, you need to be able to react in an instant.”

Henry fell into step with her and pondered that a moment as they headed back to the car.

“I could use adrenaline. That makes you react quicker.”

“Yes, but it would come at the price of stamina.”

Henry frowned and looked at his feet.

“I just thought it was a cool idea.”

“Henry,” Regina stopped him and tilted his chin up so he looked at her, “it can be done. Just because the answer doesn’t appear immediately doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

“Can you do it?” Henry grinned. “Can you show me?” He had been really impressed when she had leaped across the meadow like it was nothing.

Regina considered it.

“Very well.” She held up a finger. “I am going to show you, but I am not going to tell you. I want you to listen to my magic and figure it out on your own.”

“Okay.” Henry nodded eagerly.

“Climb on.” Regina held her hands out behind her and nodded back.

“Like a piggyback?” Henry looked doubtful. “I’m too heavy. No way you can run with me.”

Regina arched a brow at him and Henry mimicked it. She was quite small and he nearly reached her shoulders now. He was far too big to be carried around.

“Henry, you can’t very well listen to my magic if I run from you, can you?”

“I guess…”

“Or are you afraid?”

“Fine,” Henry frowned and reached up to hold her shoulders, “don’t blame me when I squish you.”

He saw his mom roll her eyes and then jumped up without any warning.

Regina huffed out a breath, but more out of surprise than anything else. She caught him under the knees and hefted him higher against her back. She was suddenly reminded of learning this from Rumplestiltskin. She had been in Henry’s position, of course, but it was one of her fond memories from their lessons together.

She knew now that he had been tempting her, seducing her into believing magic was the be all and end all. It rankled her that she had taken it all in hook, line and sinker, but she was determined that Henry would learn differently. She would always let him know there was a choice, not to get lazy and rely on magic. 

“Here,” Regina juggled the comic book, letting go of one of Henry’s legs to hand it back to him, “tuck it between us. It’s about to get windy.”

Henry was surprised that she managed to hold him without any seeming effort.

“I’m not too heavy?” Henry stuffed the book down the front of his jacket.

“You feel like you’ve been eating rocks for lunch, but I’m fine.” She glanced back at him. “Wrap your arms around my neck and hold on tight.”

Henry did as he was told but it was with the air of someone humouring her. Well, he’d tighten his hold soon enough.

“Are you listening?”

“Uh-huWAAH!” Henry yelped when his mother took off with no further warning.

One second she’d just been standing there, the next, she had bolted forward, forcing him to clutch at her neck. She laughed at him and Henry –once he had gotten over his surprise- laughed too.

Regina crossed the meadow and disappeared into the treeline in seconds. She jumped as soon as she was within the shadows of the pines and hurled herself through the air at some seventy miles an hour. She kicked off a tree trunk, bouncing over to the next and the next, working her way up into the branches and then leaping from one to the other. She was showing off, but it was an important lesson for him. He was going to have to learn to pull this off in the very least before she taught him anything offensive.

Henry whooped at the wild ride, clutching to her neck and watching the trees blur past him. He noticed Regina deftly avoided the branches, hurdling and ducking them even as she bounded from one to the other. Everything seemed impossibly fast, Henry could barely catch sight of things before they were suddenly right there and he knew he was a long way from managing this.

All too soon, Regina dropped to the forest floor, sending up a spray of bark and leaves like a wave from the prow of a boat. She rushed through the ferns, not slowing her careening pace in the slightest and suddenly burst out of the forest onto the road a few yards from where she had parked.

Her legs locked straight when she found another car there and her feet dragged furrows into the mud at the roadside when she slid to a halt.

“David.” Regina panted looking down at David lying on the ground. He’d knocked himself over when she’d startled him.

“Regina!” David sagged in relief and then hurled himself to his feet. “You scared me.”

“Wimp.” Regina smirked at him and bent so Henry could lower himself to the ground.

“That was awesome!” Henry wobbled a little on jellied legs but rallied himself gamely. “David, you should have seen it! Mom can super-leap and run at super-speed. She carried me all the way from the meadow to here in _seconds_ and we were flying through the trees and everything!”

“You can flit?” David raised his brows at Regina. “I thought only vampires could do that.”

“I’m not quite as fast as a vampire.” Regina shrugged.

“That’s a vampire trick?” Henry looked up at Regina, excited. “You knew a vampire?”

“Henry, I knew _the_ vampire.” Regina laughed. “The Count and I had a very…rewarding relationship.”

David did not miss the way Regina’s fingers went to her neck as if to retrace old scars. She caught him looking and smirked.

“Man, I’m gonna take forever to learn.” Henry huffed. “You make it look so easy.”

“Henry, I am over sixty years old, I’ve had quite a bit of practice.”

“But you didn’t even have magic for half that, in fact, you only had magic for about fifteen years, how am I supposed to ever get that good?”

“Even without magic, I never stopped theorising about it.” She didn’t tell him that she had entire notebooks filled with contingencies for the curse breaking. Not least of all was the failsafe…which she now knew she could never use. Aside from dropping it down an apparently bottomless pit, she could never abandon him like that. “Magic is mostly mental. I told you, work smarter not harder.” She tapped a finger against his nose.

Henry pushed her hand away but laughed anyway.

Regina turned back to David and grinned wickedly.

“Snow finally kicked you out?”

“Ha-ha.” David drawled at her. He was silent a moment more and then sullenly admitted. “Yes.”

Regina snorted.

“Why’d grandma kick you out the loft? You do something wrong?” Henry frowned up at David and his grandfather was caught off guard for a moment before he rallied himself.

“Sort of. She wanted to clean up. I knocked some stuff over.”

“Is that a thing guys do?” Henry turned to look at his mom. “I mean, Daniel did it in the manor and you got mad enough to break the couch. I thought I just knocked stuff over because I was clumsy. I won’t grow out of it?”

Regina looked at him for a long moment, her lips pressed together and then she spun to look back at David.

“So, how did you find us?!”

“I was looking for Emma.” David seized on the distraction whilst Henry frowned, knowing he was missing something but not quite sure what. “I found Daniel at the bar and he said she was still staying with you and that she and Maleficent were off…doing something?”

“Yes, Operation Kingfisher phase one, I believe it is referred to.” Regina looked at Henry who nodded to confirm. “She and Mal have gone off to collect some magical ingredients.”

“They went beyond the town line to get a magic tree.” Henry supplied helpfully and Regina winced.

“They what-now?!” David yelped.

“It’s cool, Maleficent went in her dragon shape so I’m pretty sure they could handle whatever they come across out there.”

“Oh my god.” David clapped his hands over his eyes and huffed out a breath. He dropped them to look at Regina. “You approved this?”

“Mom suggested it.” Henry frowned.

“Are you _ever_ going to stop airing my nefarious schemes?” She looked over at him, harassed and Henry’s brows rose when he realised what he’d done.

“Ooh.” His mouth twisted. “Habit?”

“Break it.” Regina commanded and turned back to David, holding up a hand before he could get into full flow. “She’s going to be fine. They both are. They’re not going far.”

“I just got kicked out of the house, when I’d REALLY rather not, to find her!” David threw up his hands.

“I missed you too.” Regina smirked at him and he scowled.

“She’s really okay?” David’s voice was low and more serious than it had been before. “She hasn’t tried to call us once.”

“She knew you were busy.” Regina shrugged a shoulder and reached out blindly to clap her hand over Henry’s mouth when he opened it to speak. “Get in the car, Henry.”

“But…”

“ _Car._ ”

“Fine.” Henry scowled and went off to sulk in the front seat of the Mercedes.

“Is she okay?” David really did look worried when he asked so Regina granted him an honest answer.

“She’s…getting that way.” Regina folded her arms over her chest. “It’s a lot to take in and Snow probably hasn’t helped. I’m not,” she held her hand up before David could speak, “just saying that. You know what she’s like. She’s likely been ramming ‘family’ down Emma’s throat for the past month or so and that’s not what she needs right now.”

“And you know what she needs?” David’s jaw clenched.

“She asked to stay, David. She asked to stay with _me_.” Regina smirked a little when David’s brows rose. “Yeah. Caught me by surprise too.”

David looked away from Regina and let loose a slow breath.

“This hurts.” He said quietly.

“I know.” Regina answered just as low. “Give her time, David. Her entire world has been knocked over and now she has to rebuild. In a way, I’m more familiar to her than you and Snow are. She’s _used_ to dealing with me –especially on my bad days- family is not something she has much practice with.”

“I should never have sent her away.” David kicked idly at the ground and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“Henry.” Regina smiled a lopsided smile and shrugged a shoulder. As one word arguments went, it was fairly effective.

David huffed a chuckle and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

“Yeah. Henry.”

“Come on, get in that stupid truck of yours and follow us back to the manor. I’ll cook something and we can wait for Emma to come back. I think it’s probably best that you meet her with the rest of us there to distract you if need be.”

“Probably shouldn’t have told me that.” David cocked his head at her.

“That’s how she’ll see it. It’s not necessarily what we’ll _do_ …” Regina shrugged her shoulders. “Now, get in the truck. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can eat.”

“Will there be eggs?” David perked up. “I need protein.”

“Get in the _truck_ , David.” Regina told him firmly and turned away so he couldn’t see her smile.

She’d missed his stupid face.

 

**_The Manor…_ **

 

“So, what’d I miss?” David waited impatiently for his late lunch and directed the question to Henry.

He was the probably the least censored source of information he was going to get.

“Uuuuhh…Daniel was mean to Emma but they seem to be friends now. Emma met George and freaked OUT. Ruby turned up and she went all weird but then we went to find Maleficent and mom taught me how to do a tracking spell and all other kinds of stuff when we helped Maleficent build her castle. Then we went to dinner at Maleficent’s house and the place is HUGE! She grew chairs out of trees. Emma took Merida and me back to the Ugly Duckling because mom and Daniel wanted to walk home.”

David shot a look at Regina. ‘Walk’. Right.

“Then Maleficent turned up for breakfast and we decided to get started on operation Kingfisher so that Maleficent can meet up with Cobalt –her unicorn friend- and bring him back here to stay with all of us. They were going to build a big machine that would tear through all of time and space by being flung into the fabric of reality by the planet but then Emma suggested building a door instead of blowing up the town and so her and Maleficent have gone off to get the tree that Emma came through to this world in.”

Henry chomped a huge bite of his burger and munched happily.

“Then me and mom went and did magic so I can learn to super-leap but you knew that already.”

David chuckled and nodded. He brightened considerably when Regina clattered two plates onto the worktop and took a seat herself.

“What is _this?_ ” David tilted to the side so he could appreciate the…work of art that Regina had just put in front of him.

“Portuguese roll filled with fillet steak, southern fried chicken breast, mayonnaise, fried egg and Jack Daniels barbecue sauce.” Regina shrugged. “A side of sweet potato fries and sweetcorn fritters of course.”

“I’m going to get fat. It’s gonna be awesome.” David picked the entire sandwich up. He considered a moment, gave up on any hopes of grace, and just tore into it. He groaned at the taste and chewed happily.

“Good?” Regina smirked and David only nodded rather than give up on shovelling more food into his mouth. She smirked and looked down at her own burger.

How the hell was she going to get all that in her mouth?

Perhaps she had not thought this through.

“It’s delicious!” David practically groaned and tore into his burger viciously. “This is so great.”

“You can’t move in, I’ve run out of room.” Regina told him firmly and sipped from her soda. God, she was hungry, how the hell was she getting this monstrosity into her mouth?

 “I’m happy with Snow.” David said quickly and Regina hummed in her throat, eyes narrowing a fraction.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” David inhaled a sweetcorn fritter in two bites and growled a happy growl at the taste.

Regina’s brows rose. She’d never seen the attraction to David before, not really, but if those were the hungry sounds he made…Regina smirked.

She’d be sure to tell Daniel about them later. To compare and contrast obviously.

“She’s just…adjusting.”

Regina’s tongue found her cheek and she arched a brow.

“Not like that!” David glared at her and then a somewhat smug look kicked his lips up in a grin. “Well, okay, yes like that BUT also…this.” He waved between himself and Regina.

“This?” Regina frowned. “What this?”

“Us being friends.” David shrugged. “She’s not…she doesn’t…and I may have made things worse when I told her about the dinner you invited me to…before…the curse broke.” David trailed off nervously when he remembered was still sitting with them at the table.

He _appeared_ to be happily trying to eat his burger, fries and fritters with his whole face and both hands, but Henry _appeared_ to be just a little boy and that was certainly not the case.

Regina frowned at him a moment and then her brows shot up and her eyes went wide.

“You _TOLD_ her about that?!”

“It just, kind of…happened?”

“You’re lucky it didn’t!” Regina snapped. “God! Will you people ever learn to LIE?!” Regina slapped her hand down on top of her burger, crushing it into a more bite friendly height and tore into it viciously. She fumed silently and David pressed his lips together and huffed a sigh through his nose.

“I just wanted to explain to her that there was nothing of that…nature…between us.” David flapped his hands and then shrugged. “Besides, there couldn’t be, you’re with Daniel.”

“Oh _god._ ” Regina dropped her forehead into her palm and groaned. She stayed like that and spoke to her son without looking. “Henry, you’re good with women, explain to your grandfather why he’s an idiot. Use small words. Monosyllabic if at all possible.”

“Huh? Oh. ‘Kay.” Henry licked some burger sauce from his fingers with a slurp and looked over at David. “So you told Snow that the one thing that stopped you and mom from being more than friends is that she’s with her True Love? Sorry, mom, couldn’t figure any more smaller words for some of it.”

“That’s alright, sweetie, I think he got the salient points.” Regina smiled and then turned back to David, eyebrows raised.

“That’s not what I said!” David looked horrified. “Not even a little!”

“Tell me; was it before or after you didn’t even say that a little that you were jettisoned from the loft?” Regina waved her burger back and forth with her question.

“Uh…kind of…during?”

“Ooh.” Regina and Henry winced, speaking in exactly the same way with the same expression. Something like horrified sympathy.

“You’re in biiiiiig trouble.” Henry nodded and crammed another bite of burger into his mouth.

“I’ll say, if she finds out you came straight to me, she’s going to blow her- -Snow.” Regina froze, her burger halfway to her mouth. “You’re…here.” She frowned and set her burger down. “In my house. The house with the locked…door.”

“Bandit.” Snow waved at herself and then rounded on David. “Seriously?! I leave you alone for five minutes and you end up here?!”

“I’ve been gone for nearly two hours.” David frowned and Henry and Regina sucked in a breath through their teeth and winced for him. He looked at his grandson and Regina and back to his wife. “I was…hungry?”

Regina scrunched up her face when every syllable that left his mouth just dug a deeper hole. Still, she was hungry and she wasn’t required for this.

Might as well enjoy her dinner with the show.

Regina continued to eat and Henry, realising that it was still acceptable, resumed wolfing down his food. They’d both spent a good couple of hours doing magic and they had no desire to go hungry if they didn’t have to.

“Hun- -! There’s a _diner_. There’s food in the cupboards in the _loft_. You didn’t have to come to HER!” Snow jabbed her finger in Regina’s direction who just watched her step-daughter blandly.

She’d be offended later. Once she’d finished her daily intake of fatty calories. God, she was a good cook. It tasted _fantastic._

“For a start, you threw me out after that stupid argument. Secondly, I came to find Regina when Daniel told me that _Emma_ was with her. I wanted to see our daughter because she’s been my daughter for about five damn minutes in the last twenty eight years.”

“I am sorry about that.” Regina leaned over and spoke in a low voice that Snow could still hear perfectly well. “I was having a bit of a day.”

“I know.” David snorted something that was almost a chuckle and then turned back to Snow. “And THIRDLY, I like spending time with my grandson and he lives _here_ now. With his mother. Where he belongs.”

“Wait a second!” Snow threw up her hands. “What happened to it being Regina’s problem if her soul got sucked out? What happened to firing squads? What happened to ‘you’re naïve, Snow, she’s never going to change’?!”

“She did change!” David surged from his chair to his feet and towered over Snow.

Regina’s brows shot for her hairline as did Henry’s.

David didn’t usually become the king he technically was and never with Snow but – _damn­-_ kingly growls were even better than the hungry growls and, unfortunately for all concerned, Snow caught the ‘not bad’ expression on Regina’s face.

“Changed into what?!” Snow snapped. “What could she _possibly_ become that would have you so enthralled with her?”

Regina held up a finger and opened her mouth but Henry pushed her hand down and firmly shook his head.

“Last month you were ready to murder her in her sleep and now you’re BFF’s! I just want to understand, David. I don’t understand what she’s done to you.” Snow looked a little lost then and she gulped hard. She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s a BFF?” Regina leaned a little closer to Henry but didn’t take her eyes off the show. This was getting good.

“Best Friend Forever.” Henry munched on more French Fries.

“So what if she is my best friend?” David hunched his shoulders and threw up his hands. Missing the way Regina jerked as if he’d taken a swipe at her with those words. She’d have smirked at an insult, rolled her eyes at a physical blow but –kind words- that threw her.

“So what if she changed? Not turning back into the girl you knew but something else, something great. So what if she’s had my back since you disappeared? So what if she pulled herself back together? So what if she tried SO hard to be good, to be better, to be the person that her entire family wanted her to be? So what if they –we- wanted that not just because we didn’t want her to try and decapitate us because it was Tuesday but because we just wanted her to stop hurting? Yeah, Snow, you’re right. So what if all that?”

“If I try and hug him,” Regina told Henry firmly, “stop me.”

“Nope.” Henry spoke with a pop.

Snow opened her mouth and stalled. She had no idea what to say to all that. Her eyes drifted to Regina, who bit into her last sweetcorn fritter and just watched her in return.

Snow slowly shook her head. Then it became more violent.

“No.” She backed away from them, her hands coming up as if to ward David off when he took a step towards her. “No. No way. I’ve fallen for this trick so many times. It’s not REAL. It’s. Never. Real. You’re a _monster_!”

“ENOUGH!”

Henry was suddenly on top of the breakfast bar, his hands clenched into fists and his voice filling the room so loudly that it echoed twice in the huge house.

“My mom.” He gritted. “Is not. A monster.”

“Henry…” Regina reached for his hand, voice deliberately gentle. “It’s alright, honey. It doesn’t hurt coming from her. I deserve it coming from her.”

“You deserve it from _no one_.” Henry hissed, blue and purple magic sparking in his eyes. His teeth were bared, sparks like burning magnesium punctuating every syllable. “’Specially not family.”

“Sweetie, come down off the table.”

“Apologise.” Henry ordered Snow as she stood gaping up at him.

“What did you do to him?” Snow glared at Regina.

“Not. Helping. Snow.” Regina growled at Snow and then changed to a lighter tone for Henry. “Come down, Henry. You’re standing in your lunch.”

“Apologise.” Henry’s sights were fixed on Snow and he’d inherited his tenacity from Regina.

When Snow just continued to stare up at him Henry crackled with a surge of further power and Regina darted a glance at David. The situation was deteriorating rather rapidly.

“ _SAY YOU’RE SORRY!_ ” Henry bellowed and Regina was already moving around the breakfast bar.

Henry was a half moment from snapping. She had to get through to him. He was just coming into his magic and she knew well that if it bucked his control for just a second, he’d possibly kill one of the people he loved most.

She had time. She hoped. She just had to get through to him. Just had to calm him down before he did something he’d regret.

So, naturally, Emma appeared.

“Hey,” she strode into through the French windows and took in the scene at a glance, eyes wide, “what’d I miss?”

“Oh, great, you’re here too?!” Snow snapped and Regina lunged.

Henry screamed, wordless with rage, and magic tore from him. Spearing from his chest, from his heart, like a lance of light to skewer Snow.

He wasn’t thinking clearly. He wasn’t thinking at all. Magic was a defence mechanism and his was cuddled so close to Regina that he’d react as any son would to his mother being hurt and Snow’s words _had_ hurt. If only a flicker, if only for an instant, but Henry had felt it and he’d wanted to drive away the source of his mother’s pain.

Simply put, Henry had suddenly found himself in a position to do all that protecting he had always wanted to do.

Regina couldn’t let him.

She’d NEVER let him hurt himself in such a way.

Regina slammed into Snow, tackling the other woman out of the way but not cleanly enough to tumble free of the raw force that Henry summoned at will.

She –incredibly- felt a flash of pride at such strength. He was going to be _wonderful_ when he was grown, when he truly came into his power. He was going to change the world.

He’d already changed hers after all.

That was the last thought she had before Henry’s purple shot blue light speared into her chest and clean out the other side.

Regina was blasted backwards by the blow, slamming into the wall and punching straight through it to the living room beyond in a hail of bricks and mortar.

She skidded across the cream carpet of the lounge and smashed the coffee table to kindling before tumbling to a ragged halt under the windows.

She didn’t get up again.

She didn’t move at all.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, 
> 
> Yes, I've been gone for a while. I've been ill. All better now. Mostly better. 
> 
> Whatever. 
> 
> Anyway, I'd just like to say that this chapter was actually written before 4B even started so there's no way I could have known about the connection that Adam and Eddie were going to make with Emma and the Darkness. 
> 
> Besides, y'all know what I write is going to be better than whatever crap they churn out in canon. 
> 
> I have seen the promos for season five. I am somewhere between amused and horrified with the horror that is Dark Emma. 
> 
> And not in a good way. 
> 
> Clutch and H+1/2 will be updated as soon as I actually get back into writing proper. I haven't written anything good in quite a few weeks due to being sicky and that whole adulting thing that everyone seems so hellbent that I do. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it :D


	46. Chapter 46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I have been away so long, folks. 
> 
> Also sorry that this isn't Heart and a Half as some of you have been practically salivating at the prospect of. 
> 
> Real life has been something of a challenge recently with a very full time job that eats up an unholy amount of my time. Not to mention injuries of the writing hand deibilitating variety that have made writing or even summoning the motivation for it all but impossible to complete. 
> 
> Still, I've been humming and hawing over this chapter for what must feel like an age to you guys as much as I and I decided -in typical Scottish fashion- to fuck the rules and post it anyway. 
> 
> I'm not sure how I feel about it, it's quite angsty compared to what I usually write but I am happy with how it came out. 
> 
> Especially considering that I hadn't even THOUGHT of writing a Snow/Daniel confrontation until someone else suggested it and then realised exactly that had to happen!
> 
> I'm also pleased with Henry and Emma in this. They turned out okay. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy.

**Chapter 46 – Give Me That Horizon**

 

_“MOM!”_

Henry’s ragged scream was heartbroken and he hurled himself from the breakfast bar with magic borne strength. He careened past Snow, flinging himself the length of the living room through the hole he’d torn in the wall and slithered to a halt over Regina.

“Mom!” Henry knelt over her, reaching for her and then halting himself when he didn’t know if he’d make it worse. “MOM!”

“Regina.” David crashed to his knees beside her too and tore away the rubble that littered her. “Regina, you’d better be okay. Daniel’s going to KILL me if you’re not.” David shoved the remnants of the coffee table away and looked down at her, searching for any sign of life.

“Is she breathing?” Emma cautiously approached and peered down over her father’s shoulder.

“I think so.” David bent close, hovering his ear over Regina’s mouth to listen for breath and sagged with relief when Regina murmured something, her eyes still closed.

“What’d she say?!” Henry asked desperately.

“She said ‘get off, Charming, people will talk’.” David gusted a relieved sigh and leaned back, grasping one of Regina’s hands whilst Henry took the other. They pulled her gently upright and Regina winced her eyes open.

“Mom!” Henry flung his arms around her neck and she caught him easily.

“It’s okay, baby boy, I’m fine.” Regina wound her arms around him too and kissed his hair. “I’m totally fine.”

“Seriously?!” Emma gaped at her. “You just took out a _wall_ and you’re fine?!”

“Henry promised never to hurt me again. His heart will not let him –or his magic- break that promise.” Regina held Henry as tightly as he held her, knowing he needed it. “And it was Henry that blew out the wall. His magic engulfed me to protect me, removed the wall to keep me from getting crushed and stopped the mortar from crushing me whilst slowing my drag across the floor so I didn’t ruin the front window.”

“Say what-now?” Emma stared down at her. “His magic did all that by itself?”

“No.” Regna huffed out a breath. She was a little sore, she didn’t really want to be doling out magical lore with an eleven year old cutting off the blood supply to her legs. “Henry did that. Internal magic cannot act independently like Storybrooke magic can and the human brain is a lot faster than you think it is. It takes in more details than will ever reach conscious thought. He moved to keep me safe. As he promised to.”

“I’m so sorry.” Henry sniffled against her neck, not loosening his hold on her in the slightest.

“It’s alright, honey. Everything can be fixed.”

“What occurs?” Mal strode into the living room through the hole in the wall, dragging Snow along by dint of a clawed hand spanning the back of her neck.

“Uh, Henry got hella mad and that wall just absolutely positively had to go.” Emma waved at the gaping hole where the wall should be. “I think you oughta keep it, Regina. Really opens up the room.”

“Let her go, Maleficent.” David rose slowly to his feet, fully aware that there was no love lost between him and the dragon. “Please.”

“Why? It’s her fault.” Mal shrugged, jostling Snow unkindly.

“How do you know that?” David tried again, cautiously stepping closer. He was really beginning to miss his sword.

“Because she _breathes.”_ Mal drawled as if it were perfectly obvious.

“Mal, spit her out. You don’t know where she’s been.” Regina spoke from the floor and managed to pry Henry’s arms a fraction looser around her neck.

Mal reluctantly released Snow who was promptly scooped up by Charming and shoved behind him so that he was between her and the dragon.

Everybody turned when the front door opened and Daniel walked in a few moments later.

David tensed when the other man looked over the room, taking in the damage, the ring of onlookers and –surprise, surprise- Regina at the epicentre of it all.

“Five minutes.” He snapped, striding into the room and slapping the bag of clothes he carried against David’s chest hard enough to stagger him back a step. “Five minutes without you endangering life or limb. Not much to ask I don’t think. Not unreasonable.”

He dropped down into a crouch beside her and scanned her from top to toe. He grunted low in his throat when she seemed fine and that meant he could continue his tirade unabated.

“Well, what did you do?” He demanded of her and Regina’s jaw clenched.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed after a moment, inhaling deeply, studying the scent of magic that he had come to associate with…Henry. His eyes flashed and his teeth bared in a snarl that was all him and nothing to do with Hyde. He reached between Henry and Regina, curling his arm about the boy’s waist and hoisted him forcibly from Regina’s lap.

Henry didn’t resist, hauled up completely off the floor, tucked under Daniel’s arm. He was carried away like that, through the house and out the French doors that closed behind them with a deceptively controlled clip.

“Oh my god, what is he…?!” Snow made to follow and jerked to an ungainly halt when David’s hand closed around her arm. “Charming, what are you doing?”

“ _Enough_.” David leaned down so they were at eye level. His growl made even Mal’s eyebrows rise. “I think you’ve caused more than enough trouble today.”

“But- -!”

“We’re going home.” David steered her towards the front door.

Snow opened her mouth to protest but caught sight of David’s face and decided not to get herself into deeper trouble. She was bodily hauled out of the house and propelled towards the truck, the slam of the front door heralding their departure.

Mal propped her hands on her hips, head tilted and thought out loud.

“That woman is headed for the angriest sex she’s ever had.”

“Thooooose are my parents.” Emma pressed her lips together and her eyebrows rose.

“My sympathies.” Mal was not so easily put off.   

Regina let loose a gasping pant and collapsed back against the wall, her chest heaving.

“You okay?!” Emma squeaked. “You said you were okay!”

“Emma, I was just punched through a _wall_. Even I need a breather after something like that.” She grimaced and shifted. “Someone pick me up. I can’t feel my foot.”

Mal rolled her eyes and stepped forward. Stooping, she gripped Regina by the waist, waiting until Regina could wind her arms around her neck, and then lifted her effortlessly from the floor. She held onto her still when Regina’s eyes widened and she weaved a little, looking more than a little punch drunk.

Mal just wrapped her arm around Regina’s waist and held her up.

“What the hell happened?!” Emma threw up her hands. “I walk in and suddenly everything goes to shit. I mean, I’ll admit that I have a history of that in your life but that’s a record for even me!” Emma looked more than a little harassed and Regina sighed and gave her the synopsis.

“Snow kicked David out to come and find you. He found Henry and I instead. We came back here for a late lunch. Turns out, David was kicked out because he is now –apparently- my best friend. Snow took exception. She followed him here _broke in_ and started…freaking out all over the place. It got a little personal. Moreso when David idiotically came to my defence and –for reasons that I don’t care to go into- she had the impression that David and I are…a thing.”

“A…thing?” Emma’s brows rose. “But…Daniel.”

“What is the expression,” Mal mused, “go big or go home?”

Regina snorted a laugh despite herself and leaned more heavily into Mal.

“I really want to sit.”

Mal scooped her up off the floor with only a token protest from Regina and set her down onto the couch. She pulled the afghan from the back of the sofa and bundled her up in it.

Regina huffed out a slow sigh and just sat for a moment.

Mal dropped down beside her, lifting her legs up onto the couch and scooting Regina over to curl between them, propped up against Mal’s chest. Regina sighed in evident relief.

“Soft dragon, warm dragon, little coil of scales…I may have a concussion.” She mused quietly and Mal just arched a brow down at her and huffed out a slow breath of magic that poured down over the top of Regina and sank beneath her skin.

Regina gave another slow sigh and sank deeper into Mal’s embrace.

“Hold up,” Emma dropped down onto the armchair beside the couch where Regina could look at her without tilting her head up, “you and David?”

“I’ve had worse.” Regina shrugged and then grimaced at the motion. “Very nearly had him before the curse broke, in fact. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Mal huffed more magic down onto her.

“So, uh, what were the plans for that then? What were you going to do when the curse broke and he remembered who you were?” Emma hunched her shoulders, just wondering what the hell mad thought processes had been going on inside that crazy head of Regina’s.

“Hmmm, he’d have probably ended up fucking me on the hallway floor.” Regina tilted her head, pointing vaguely behind the couch to indicate the entryway of the manor. She narrowed her eyes, considering the variables and ignoring Emma’s wide eyed look of horror. “Likely with his sword at my neck and my magic tearing his clothes off.”

“Oh-KAY!” Emma held up her hands. “I think that’s plenty of your weird little fantasy.”

“Hardly…weird.” Mal tried the word out for size and wrinkled her nose when she didn’t think it flattered her. “He’s not repulsive. Well, when he’s not trying to cram eggs filled with True Love or some such nonsense into the base of my brain.”

“So-o, everybody wants to screw my dad.” Emma clapped her hands together, propping her elbows on her knees and nodded to no one in particular. “Awesome.”

“Well, perhaps not Snow right now.” Mal snorted in vindictive amusement.

“He can probably talk her round.” Regina snickered and Emma bounded to her feet.

“Right! I’m going to go and –y’know- check on Henry and try and find that bottle of brain bleach I saw the other day.” Emma made tracks and it was only Mal and Regina left in the massacred living room.

“How are you feeling, love?” Mal propped her chin gently on top of Regina’s head.

“Cosy.” Regina mumbled. She snuggled –though she would deny it under torture- deeper into Mal’s space heater of a body. “Don’t move for the next fortnight, okay?”

Mal huffed a breath in the shape of a chuckle.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“So unlike you.” Mal smirked.

“Bed.” Regina twined her arms around Mal’s neck. “Bed sounds like an excellent idea.”

“And what about your dear husband?”

“He’ll come to kick you out eventually.” Regina nuzzled her nose into the soft skin of Mal’s throat. Still bearing Ruby’s bite.

She needed to be warm. She needed to be warm all over, right now.

“You only want me for my body.” Mal heaved a sigh, but she levered herself up off the couch, gathering Regina up with her.

“Bed.” Regina sighed, her head nodding. Her magic going to work on her multiple injuries that she certainly wasn’t letting Henry see. His magic was strong and it had _tried_ to protect her…it just hadn’t been strong _enough_. “Bed, bed, bed.”

“Yes, dearest, we’re going.” Mal cradled her gently and carried her up the stairs. “Does this mean I get to play with both of you when Daniel arrives?”

Regina chuckled.

“You’re already marked, gecko.” She mumbled sleepily. “You’re not ours to play with.”

Regina gave a cavernous yawn and missed the way Mal stiffened at such a proclamation. She stared down at Regina, the sorceress already asleep in her arms so that she couldn’t question what Regina meant by that.

She scowled.

Favourite or no, Regina could be just as annoying as the rest of the puny pink wafers sometimes.

Still, Mal snuffed a breath of irritable magic and carried her best friend to bed so that she might recover in safety.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

 

**_Meanwhile, In the Kitchen…_ **

 

Emma carefully approached the French doors and peered outside to see how things were going with Daniel and Henry.

She knew that Daniel would never hurt Henry. She’d gleaned that much from him in the short time that she’d known him and –true love or not- Regina would have lost her shit when Daniel tried to take Henry from her had he been any kind of danger at all.

Emma couldn’t hear what was being said but Henry was so effusive and Daniel was so quiet that it wasn’t really necessary.

As it was, Henry seemed more distressed than anything else and Daniel seemed to be completely impassive as the whole story apparently poured out of Henry.

Daniel stood, towering over Henry in a mountain of disapproval and muscle, arms folded over his chest, watching Henry with a slight frown on his face but no overt anger.

Henry, for his part, seemed to be losing his mind. He spoke wildly, his eyes wide and wet, arms flailing everywhere. He kept tunnelling his hands into his hair and clenching them so tightly that his knuckles turned white. His eyes screwed shut until he spoke through gritted teeth then Daniel spoke, presumably telling him not to hurt himself, and Henry dropped his hands and went back to trying to explain to Daniel what had happened.

Finally his words fumbled to a halt and Daniel –after a long moment of letting Henry stew in it- huffed out a slow breath and sank down onto his heels.

He reached up, sliding his hand around the back of Henry’s neck, and looked him right in the eye as he spoke calmly.

Henry blinked rapidly, nodding, and looked down at his socks. His tears dripped down off his nose and onto his tee shirt but he didn’t seem to notice.

Daniel glanced to the French doors and saw Emma waiting hesitantly inside. He jerked his head subtly and Emma hurried out of the doors, faltering uncertainly when they opened for her, and joined Henry and Daniel on the decking.

Henry hurled himself at her and wound his arms around her waist without even a fraction of hesitation.

Emma, brows shooting up in surprise, caught him as she rocked back a step under his weight and her arms came around him automatically. He buried his face against her chest and cried into her shirt.

“Is she okay?” Daniel spoke quietly, resting his hand on top of Henry’s head and that seemed to quiet the little boy’s sobs a little.

Emma was more than a little jealous that the man could do that effortlessly with a single touch.

“Maleficent’s got her.” Emma nodded. “They were in the living room last I saw.”

Daniel’s eyes took on that unfocussed look that he and Regina got whenever they were thinking about one another intently and he grunted low in his throat.

“When she surfaces, tell her I went out.” Daniel rumbled to Emma and she recognised that he was… _furious_.

He looked perfectly calm. His voice was steady, his eyes clear and midnight blue, his knuckles didn’t whiten and his hands didn’t fist but…he was mad. He was hella mad.

Emma sucked in a deep breath and bit her lip.

She knew exactly where he was going. He was going to see Snow.

Emma supposed that conversation was long overdue and she clipped her teeth together on whatever words she had been about to babble to try and placate the man.

Snow had fucked up. Again. She’d hurt someone Regina cared about. Again. She’d been angry and lashed out and Henry had gotten caught in the crossfire and then Regina had taken the brunt of it – _again_ \- when she’d tried to save her son from that pain.

Emma swallowed hard and fought for something to say.

“You and David are friends, right?”

Daniel looked at her for a long moment and then he nodded once.

Emma nodded again. She didn’t need to know anything else she supposed.

“I’ll tell her when she comes down for dinner.” Which Emma just that second realised she would have to cook.

Looked like she was about to start that whole useful thing.

Daniel ruffled Henry’s hair once more, brushed his fingers over Emma’s shoulder in a farewell gesture that she found both startling and somehow comforting, then he jogged down the steps of the decking and disappeared around the side of the house.

Emma watched him go and rubbed Henry’s back as he continued to sniffle into her. She realised somewhat bizarrely that her shirt was ruined and –despite only owning three- she didn’t mind at all. Usually she was clingy about that kind of thing. She’d never had much growing up, she’d hoarded what she had possessed greedily, and now she didn’t care at all that her shirt was likely ruined. If not from tears and snot then definitely from the fisting of material that was going on over her back with Henry grasping the material in his clenched hands.

Maybe she had changed.

Maybe there was hope for her yet.

“Hey, kid, you wanna see something?”

Henry’s snuffles slowed a little and he rubbed his eyes and nose against her shirt to clear them a little and looked up at her with big wet eyes.

“What?”

“C’mere.” Emma lifted her arms in a hint to get him to let go for a second and then took his hand when he released her.

She led him down to the lawn and towards the centuries old fir tree that had been snapped into smaller chunks and carried back into Storybrooke on the back of a dragon. It was all piled on the lawn like a mass of would-be firewood and Regina was likely to growl at the state of the ripped turf beneath both it and the talons of Maleficent’s natural form but Emma knew she wouldn’t really care and she just needed things to grouch about.

Emma led Henry to the thickest part of the trunk, so large that it was about as thick as Henry was tall, and released Henry’s hand to clamber up onto the rough bark. It was so thick and horned that she could use it as finger and toe holds but –once she was situated- she turned and held her hand out to Henry.

He scrubbed his forearm over his nose to wipe it clean (she and he were going to have to have a talk about Kleenex) and took her hand. He was decidedly less graceful than she had been when he climbed up with her help and he made a small sound when confronted with the gap between them.

A great hollow had been carved out of the tree. A hole square at the bottom and arched at the top. He had expected it to be smaller for some reason. Only needed to carry a baby after all, but there it was.

“This is…?” He looked up at Emma and she folded her legs in front of her and propped her elbows on her knees.

“Yup. This is the other end of the wardrobe.” Emma let loose a slow breath and looked down at it.

It must have been blasted into the tree explosively when it had first appeared. She couldn’t imagine the energy of crossing worlds to be gentle when it came to vaporising solid matter on the other end of things, but the years and the elements had softened the hollow. Rain and wind had worn down the worst of the damage until the inner flesh of the tree was smoother and fresh new bark had even begun to creep into the hollow, healing the wound.

“I came from Momland to that spot right there.” Emma pointed to the flatter square bottom of the hollow that was on Henry’s side of things. “I was _minutes_ old. Snow had barely had time to clean me before bundling me in the blanket that gave me my name and David…he nearly died defending me, giving me a chance to get through here. To fix things when I was a grown up. After I grew up without them.”

Henry looked down at the hollow again and –in a move that both surprised her and didn’t- he shifted forward and clambered down into the hole. He sat there, leaning back against the smooth wood, his legs tucked up so that his knees touched the sides and his ankles crossed.

“I couldn’t even look at you when you were born.”

Henry blinked rapidly and looked up at her with wide eyes.

“They tried to get me to, the doctors and nurses, but I knew I couldn’t.” Emma looked down at her hands and felt her eyes burn. She’d never told this to anyone. “If I looked at you…I’d never be able to let you go.”

“Why?” The question was ripped from his raw throat and it held so many emotions that Emma couldn’t have identified them.

“Because I wanted you to be better than I was.” Emma met his gaze head on. “I knew if I kept you –after I got out of prison- you wouldn’t have a good life. You’d be stuck with me. An ex-con. You don’t quite understand the stigma that comes with that, Henry. _Especially_ for thieves. Nobody trusts a thief. I couldn’t hold down a job for more than a few months at a time for years. It took me a long time to get the bounty hunter gig. I was just making headway for myself, just got that apartment, just had my life on track and then you showed up and turned it all upside down.”

Henry bit his lip and looked down at his socks.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, kid.”

He looked up at her with such surprise, such wary hope, that a tear slipped from her eye before she could stop it. She swatted it away with a venom most people reserved for mosquitos.

“I didn’t give you up so that you could turn up years later and save me…but you did it anyway. I gave you up so that you could have a good life. I gave you up so someone could give you _everything_ that I never had and I knew I couldn’t give you. And someone found you –or you found them- and you had, have, a good life here.”

“Are…are you mad at Grandma and Grandpa for sending you away?” Henry asked tentatively.

“Kid, I’m so mad at them for it that your mom could take notes.” Emma answered after a long moment. She let loose a sigh. “I know it hurts, it must have hurt, to think that you were abandoned, that I must not have wanted you, but that’s not the case. Not even a little bit. I _always_ wanted you, even though I knew I couldn’t keep you, and I loved you before you were even born.”

Emma hunched her shoulders and tried to explain it.

“I felt you kick, when I carried you, you were strong. Feisty even then.” She smiled for him. “I knew that you were going to change the lives of everyone you touched when you were born and I was _right_. You’re everybody’s hero, little dude. Better than Prince Charming or Snow White or even the Saviour.”

“None of you guys hurt anyone though.” Henry hugged himself. “You never hurt family.”

“We hurt each other, kid.” Emma strangled her own fingers. “It’s well documented, and totally skewed, that Regina hurt everyone she came across until you. She even hurt you when she tried to make you not believe in the curse. _I_ hurt you when I gave you away –for the right reasons, maybe, but it still hurt you- I hurt Regina when I wrecked her life and broke the curse. Snow and David hurt me when they sent me away and expected me to magically turn up twenty eight years later and save everybody’s butts. Even Snow hurt David by making you lose your temper and end up hurting your mom. Sometimes we hurt one another, kid. Sometimes it’s really bad. Sometimes it’s really bad _because_ it’s family that’s done it.”

“It’s my temper. I should be able to control it.” Henry fidgeted with his hands. “I really hurt mom, didn’t I? She said she was fine but…she isn’t.”

“She will be fine. Your mom’s a tough broad.”

Henry managed a lopsided smile for a second.

“I don’t like hurting people. Especially not mom. She’s had enough. I promised her I wouldn’t anymore.”

“It was an accident, Henry.”

“That hardly matters.” Henry sniffed. “I still did it.”

“But you didn’t _mean_ to do it _and_ ,” Emma spoke over him before he could remind her that Snow hadn’t meant to kick Regina right off the deep end with her mistakes, “you’re going to learn from it, aren’t you? You know what can happen when you lose it, you know that people can get hurt, the people you love most, you know that there are consequences to what you do.”

Henry picked at the side of the hollow he sat in and Emma let loose a slow sigh.

“You’re the most sensitive and caring person I’ve ever met, Henry. Regina did an amazing job of raising you. You’re smart and sneaky and you can be a brat but you’re also kind and brave and you just want to do what’s best. That doesn’t become meaningless just because you lost your temper. Ask your mom, she’ll tell you that you have to try every day to be good. That’s how it happens. It’s not effortless and it shouldn’t be either.”

Henry was quiet for a long moment and Emma hoped that it was enough because she’d run out of things to say.

Henry let loose a slow sigh.

“I really screwed up.”

“Yep.”

“I broke the living room.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I scared everyone.”

“Not so much. We’ve got a pretty high tolerance for this kind of thing.”

“People are gonna look at me different.”

“Kid, I hate to break it to you, but folks have always looked at you like that. I know you can take it. You’re strong enough.”

“I don’t feel strong.” Henry mumbled.

“You wanna know a secret?” Emma leaned down so they were closer to eye level. “Nobody feels strong when they’re scared or sad but we _are_ strong when we get up and keep going. When there’s nothing else you can do, kid, you hold your head up and you keep going. One foot in front of the other, chin up and keep going. You look at the horizon and you get going until you reach it. Then you feel strong again.”

“What’s the horizon after throwing your mom through a wall then?” Henry looked so forlorn that Emma floundered for a moment.

“Well…can’t say that I know your mom as well as you do bu-ut…I know she likes to eat.”

“I dunno how to cook.” Henry looked crestfallen again.

“I do.” Emma held her hands up when he looked at her in surprise. “Not like your mom can but…I make _the best_ tacos you’ve ever tasted.”

“Tacos? I’ve never had tacos.”

Emma’s eyebrows shot up and she threw up her hands.

“That’s it! I take it back. Regina screwed up with you big time. What kind of eleven year old HASN’T had tacos?!”

Henry coughed something like a laugh.

“An eleven year old that doesn’t like spicy food?”

“Are you _sure_ you’re my son?”

Henry’s laugh was a little louder.

“Come on, my tacos are filled with five by five chili. We’re going to have to get started if we want it ready for dinner time.” Emma swung her legs over the side of the tree and dropped to the ground neatly.

“Five by five chili?” Henry struggled to get out of his little hollow and looked down at her.

“Five meats for five hours.” Emma planted her hands on her hips and nodded up at him. “We’ll have time to clean up some of the living room whilst it’s cooking.”

Henry looked daunted at the task and Emma cocked her head to the side.

“One horizon at a time, kiddo.” She spoke softly. “And –I know you don’t believe me- but I’m going to be waiting at each one. Come on. One foot after the other.” Emma held up her hands to help him down and Henry squirmed off the log to catch himself on her shoulders and let her guide him safely down onto the ground.

She smiled and tousled his hair. She grimaced when she saw his shirt.

“First stop, _shower_ , you’re gross.”

Henry smirked a little and leaned into her for a moment before forcing himself to lift his chin and smile up at her.

“Thanks, Emma.”

“I know I turned up late to the party, but that’s what I’m here for. Now get, you’re disgusting.” She gave him a little shove and watched him run towards the deck and the French doors that slid open for him.

She faltered a little and let out a deep and shivering breath when she realised she had gotten through that terrorising parenting moment by the skin of her teeth. She was flying blind with this whole thing without Regina to take cues from and…she’d never wanted to not fuck up so badly in her whole life.

Still…he’d stopped crying and she’d even gotten him to smile.

Time to search out another horizon.

She looked down at herself and smirked.

She thought a clean shirt would be an _excellent_ start.

 

**_The Loft…_ **

 

The entire solid oak door jumped under each one of Daniel’s hammering blows and he forced himself to gentle.

There’d been quite enough property damage for one day, he thought.

David opened the door pretty damn quickly and he sucked in a deep breath when he saw Daniel on the other side.

He pressed his lips together and tensed for a long moment and then remembered who he was looking at. He huffed out a slow breath through his nose. He nodded once.

“I guess this is overdue.” He murmured.

Daniel, not trusting himself to speak just yet, nodded.

“I’ll go for a walk.”

David didn’t even stop to pick up his coat or keys and just left the apartment as he was. He stepped past Daniel when the other man moved aside and didn’t look back when he heard Daniel prowl into the apartment and close the door quietly behind himself.

David knew that Daniel would never hurt Snow but…he figured there was probably going to be some broken furniture when he got back.

Better that than crushed hearts.

Inside the apartment, Daniel glanced around himself and took it all in. He’d never been there before. He’d heard of it, and he knew that Regina and Henry had been here often, but he’d never been invited. Not through any malice, simply that occasion had not called for it.

Occasion had certainly called for it today.

“David, who is…oh.”

Snow stopped, halfway down the stairs, her eyes going wide when she saw Daniel standing in the middle of the loft’s open living space.

He was dressed in dark jeans, dark shirt, dark boots and a dark leather jacket. His eyes seemed a bottomless midnight blue and the green glow of his scar through his shirt against the warm tones of the apartment seemed to just make him seem bigger, darker, more otherworldly.

Snow’s breath caught and she considered for a moment bolting back up the stairs.

Daniel’s eyes narrowed as he seemed to pick up her thought.

“Don’t insult me.”

Snow swallowed hard and cautiously continued to the bottom of the stairs.

Oh, he was doing that thing. The thing that Regina could do. He looked to be ten feet tall. Snow knew, academically, that he was only a couple of inches taller than David, but she honestly couldn’t have guessed that right then. He looked like he might smack his head off one of the beams of the ceiling if he wasn’t careful.

“I…hello.” Snow blinked and realised that she’d never properly spoken to him before.

Not even before he had died.

“I’m Snow,” she thought about offering her hand but didn’t think he’d appreciate that, “I’m…responsible for…everything.”

Daniel’s brow arched just the tiniest bit and Snow hugged herself.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Daniel turned to face her fully and she swallowed hard when she saw that he not only looked to be much taller than he actually was but that he seemed so incredibly broader too.

How did they _do_ that?

Was there a class or something? Did it just happen naturally when you were so filled with rage you’d burn the world to give it something else to devour?

Snow let loose a slow breath.

“For…getting you killed. For hurting Regina. For being an idiot.” Snow bit her lip and looked down at her toes. “For falling for Cora’s…mask.”

Daniel seemed to soften almost at that and he turned to look at the breakfast bar.

“Do you…want to sit?” Snow waved at the stools and Daniel moved to do so without another word.

She had the very real sense that he was holding back the terrible storm of his temper only through the full knowledge that even the headwind of it could shear her into pieces if he wasn’t careful.

Daniel sat on one side and she stood at the other.

“Do you want a drink?”

“Water. Please.” Daniel shrugged his coat from his shoulders and the serrated muscle that seemed to cover every inch of him just made him look more dangerous.

Snow nervously sourced a pitcher of water and a couple of glasses. She poured for them both and sat on the other side of the breakfast bar from him. Daniel looked at the glass but didn’t drink from it. Snow sipped cautiously.

“Are you scared of me?” Daniel suddenly looked her right in the eye and Snow was so surprised that she answered before she truly thought about it.

“I’m scared of what you mean.”

He tilted his head and she fumbled to explain.

“I…I’ve gotten away with it up until now.” Snow clattered her glass down onto the bar and pressed her lips together. “Regina, after…well, what she did screamed across the entire world. She took over everything, dominated every room, started every conversation, shadowed every thought and…there was no room for what I had done. She was so…terrifyingly hungry with her rage that she devoured the question before it could be asked.”

Snow looked helplessly at Daniel and wondered if she was making any sense.

“’What made her this way?’” Daniel supplied and Snow nearly sagged in relief.

“Nobody thought to ask. Nobody…cared to ask.” Snow drew patterns in the condensation of the glass. “I asked. Every day. Every night. I asked and begged and pleaded to know why she had become…Her. When she had been so kind, so gentle, when she had loved you so completely.”

Snow looked down and blinked rapidly. She wasn’t allowed to shed tears over this.

“She…I don’t know what you’ve been told but…I found out seconds before she forced me to eat the apple. She told me only then what I’d done and, and, and then the sleeping curse and Charming getting me out of it and…nothing changed. We went back to war and,” Snow let out an explosive sigh, “and I got away with it _again_.”

Daniel hadn’t moved. He just let her ramble on so Snow had no choice but to keep going.

“Nobody asked and I didn’t tell them. I told Charming but…I didn’t try very hard to make him understand what I had done. Why it mattered so much to me that we never killed her. Why I never pushed for that final battle.”

Snow lapsed into silence a moment.

“She’d have done it, you know.” Snow murmured. “She’d have killed me rather than force me to do it to her.”

“Is that what you believe?” Daniel’s voice was a low rumble and caused her to flinch.

“That’s what I know.” Snow glanced at him and then quickly away. “She could have done it any time. Killed Charming, I mean. She could have taken from me what I took from her in a _second_. I’ve seen her throttle entire rooms full of people. I’ve seen her devastate armies. I’ve seen forces of nature bow to her will and not _once_ did she direct that at David.”

Snow bit her lip.

“I still don’t know why she didn’t. Why she didn’t do any of it.” Snow hunched her shoulders. “Why she didn’t take Charming from me. Why she didn’t just kill me outright. Why she didn’t tell everyone why she was doing what she was doing. Why she didn’t publically denounce me for what I was. Why she didn’t just _leave_ after she killed my father.”

“The last time she tried to run from something, she lost the person most dear to her in all the world.” Daniel spoke quietly but Snow flinched as if he had bellowed hard enough to blow out the windows. “So she has never run again. Not from anything. She won’t. She can’t.”

“I am _so_ sorry.” Her voice cracked. “You might not believe me and a single word is not enough for the pain I’ve caused you and Regina –again and again- over the years but it’s the only one I have. I’d let action speak for me instead but I can’t think of what I could possibly do to make us even.”

“You don’t _deserve_ to be even.” Daniel watched her with a terrible gaze. “You don’t get to be sorry. You don’t get to be contrite. You don’t get to be _selfish_ again and hurt over what you have done. The pain is not yours to have.”

Daniel inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“You robbed us of everything. You took my life and you took Regina’s heart. You crushed us with foolish action and a wilful, obdurate, selfishness that you tell yourself even now was naivety. You say you were just a child, that you didn’t know any better, you _must_ have realised somewhere in that empty head of yours that Cora was not as she seemed.”

Daniel seethed a moment, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

“ _Why?_ ” He snarled, his teeth bared and his eyes black. “Why did you do it? Tell me honestly. Tell us BOTH the truth. For once. Even if it is just this once. Tell us both why you did what you did.”

Snow gulped hard and looked down. She trembled violently but she didn’t run. She’d been running from this for long enough.

“I just wanted a mother!” The words burst raggedly from her and she shook her head sharply, tears finally falling. “That’s not true. I wanted _her_. I wanted the kindest woman I knew in the whole world to be mine. To be my family. I wanted it beyond reason or sense or whatever shred of kindness a spoiled little princess had left in her. I wanted to be like her. Strong and kind and beautiful and to love and be loved with not just my whole heart but my whole soul. I just wanted to be close to her and hope that she’d teach me how.”

Snow finally let out a slow breath.

“I’d have gone with you. Both of you. I’d have followed you two like a bad smell if only she’d love me and –sometimes- it feels like I’m still trying to do that.” She studied her hands. “I don’t think there’s much I wouldn’t give to have had just one moment of those seven years where she pretended to love me be…real.”

Daniel was quiet for a long moment when she finally lapsed into silence and he did not nettle her for more. She looked exhausted. A feeling he recognised.

What a tangled mess their lives were.

And all of it due to one spiteful woman.

“You…caused my death.” Daniel lined his words up neatly. “Though you are not responsible. Cora is. She’d have found out at some point and –as soon as she had- my life was forfeit along with Regina’s happiness. It would seem that we were doomed from the very beginning. Cora would never have let go of Regina. Not for anything. It would seem that my wife has this effect on everyone she spends any amount of time near.”

“She’s pretty magnetic.” Snow managed a watery smile and then blinked. “Wait. What? When was the wedding?”

Daniel huffed something like a laugh.

“As soon as I may talk her into it.” Daniel tilted his head. “I believe the memories still are too tainted for her as with her first husband.”

Snow swallowed hard but Daniel didn’t sugar coat it for her. He had little desire to do anything so kind for her.

“That being said, according to her, the universe at large already believes us to be married. We will never love another. We will never stray. We are two halves of the same whole. If she dies, so shall I and vice versa. So, you see, pieces of paper, heraldry and priests mean very little in comparison to all that.”

Snow smiled and –though it was small- it was genuine.

“Well, congratulations anyway.”

“I shall pass along your thoughts.” Daniel dipped his chin in a nod and Snow sucked in a deep breath and decided to risk his wrath again.

“How is she? After…Henry. How is _Henry_?”

“She is…recovering. She has taken much worse and walked it off.” Daniel scowled at the memories of discovering that and the terror that had accompanied such experience.

 He would never grow used to it, but he was aware of the upper range of her limits. Being punched through a wall had left her a little stunned but she would heal before dinner.

“Henry is…terrified of himself.” Daniel considered his earlier conversation with the boy and was glad to note that Snow looked stricken at the news. “Though he is with Emma and –whilst she is no Regina- she is learning how to be his mother and he does take comfort from her.”

“Must be nice.” Snow’s voice was small and she shook it off. She wasn’t allowed to feel sorry.

“I imagine it is.” Daniel studied her for a moment and something like…sorrow reared in him. His mouth twisted and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes at himself. He had the heart of a monster, should he not be more able to be a callous bastard?

“Emma will come back to you. As will David, for that matter. Considering that they both _found you_ across time, space and dimensions, your faith in the matter could stand to be a little steadier.”

Snow blinked, obviously not having thought of it that way.

“Emma hates us, doesn’t she?” Snow knew he disliked her enough to tell her the truth. “David and I. For sending her away. For putting this responsibility on her shoulders.”

“Hate is the wrong word.” Daniel folded his arms on the bar and mulled it over. “She is staggered by having a family. Stunned of what that family entails and what she now has to live up to and –yes- furious that you sent her away.”

“Do you think she’ll ever forgive us?” Snow asked quietly, craving his honesty because she knew he’d give it.

“I think she already has.” Daniel spoke with a shrug as if it didn’t matter to him. Maybe it didn’t. “The feelings of this world are muddied. She doesn’t know to differentiate between them. Too many shades of grey.”

“I don’t think that’s exclusive to this world.” Snow drawled and heaved out a sigh, rubbing at her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. I want to make this better but…I don’t know where to start.”

 She rested her chin on her hand and stared into nothing for a long moment. It had been a terribly long month and any recuperating she might have done had been ruined this afternoon by her jealousy and idiocy. She risked a look at Daniel who watched her with that steady and unblinking manner of his which was _incredibly_ unnerving. She inhaled sharply and spoke before she could think better of it.

“How did Regina do it?”

Daniel blinked and cocked his head.

“I mean…she had a lot to come back from but she’s certainly trying so she must have found a way to start…I don’t know where to start.”

Daniel mulled that over and wondered if he should give her the help. He scowled when he knew that Regina would despite _everything_ –or perhaps even because of it- want him to help Snow.

“One person at a time.” Daniel finally spoke. “She started with the person she loved most, with Henry, and she worked to earn his forgiveness. Once she had done that, she earned the friendship of your husband and that made her brave enough to try loving me again and –somewhere amongst all that- she learned to forgive herself.”

Snow drank in every word and then looked down at her hands throttling one another on the top of the scarred breakfast bar. She let out a slow rush.

“I might suggest David.” Daniel prompted her. “He’s _quite_ angry with you.”

“I know.” Snow nodded and continued ruefully. “Believe me, I know. I behaved horribly.”

“Yes. You did.”

Snow opened her mouth to say something more but a key rattled in the lock for a moment and then the door swung open when David realised the door wasn’t bolted. He cautiously entered the apartment, his gaze sweeping over the entire room with a slight frown before landing on his wife and his friend sitting at the breakfast bar. It all looked very civilised.

“Regina is unavailable to fix your furniture had I lost my temper.” Daniel stood and lifted his jacket.

“I’m not completely useless, I can put a chair or three back together.” David let loose a relieved sigh when he found that Daniel wasn’t apoplectic with rage. In fact, far from it.

“You and I both know that you’d have been left with nothing more than kindling.” Daniel gave a half smirk that wasn’t very convincing. He crossed the room to pass David on his way out of the apartment.

David chanced his luck with the little wife by following Daniel out into the hallway and asking what he needed to know.

“How is she?”

“She’s not as fine as she made out.” Daniel tilted his head and David rolled his eyes, as if that hadn’t been obvious. Daniel seemed to think in Regina’s direction for a moment and then he smirked. “She’s recovering. She’ll be fine in an hour or two…then I’m going to have _words_.”

“It was hardly her fault.”

“Doesn’t matter. She can’t keep scaring the life out of me. I’ve been dead. It’s not fun.”

David chuckled and Daniel smiled in response. A genuine smile.

“Are you having Ruby over for dinner tonight?”

Daniel frowned.

“I just went over to check on her at the Station and she seems a little…off. Granny’s working at the diner tonight and I was thinking that it might be an idea for her to spend some time with Regina and you. It always makes her feel better.”  

Daniel frowned at him and his mouth twisted.  

“ _Neither_ of you are subtle.”

David’s brow creased in confusion and Daniel’s brows rose when he realised that Charming’s matchmaking appeared to be purely coincidental.

“I’ll go and get her now.”

David’s frown lessened but he nodded, mollified.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Daniel dipped his head in a nod and then spun on his heel to walk away. He disappeared down the stairs and David turned to head back into the apartment. It wasn’t until he had bolted the door behind him that he realised what Daniel had meant.

He chuckled softly, having needed a little levity to his day and spun around when Snow spoke to him.

“David?” She stood uncertainly by the breakfast bar still, one arm across her body to grip the other. “I…you prefer David now?”

David, curious as to where this was going, nodded.

“Why…is that?” She asked tentatively, she tried not to sound accusatory. She’d started enough fights today.

“It’s my name.”

She nodded and pressed her lips together. She frowned a little as if something had just occurred to her.

“Do…do you mind that I call you Charming?”

“I am charming.” David tilted his head and smiled a little. He shook his head. “I’ve never minded it. You gave me that name. It’s an endearment from you. It’s your name for me. I’m not going to throw that away.”

“Regina calls you that too.” She spoke carefully, desperate not to make him angry at her again but she needed to _understand_.

“Regina calls me that when she thinks I’m being an idiot.” David rolled his eyes and then sobered a little. “And also to needle you.”

Snow smiled a little at that.

“Well, can’t expect her to go cold turkey I guess.”

David chuckled when Snow unwittingly used Regina’s own words. He sobered after a moment. He thought about trying to word it differently and then realised he couldn’t.

“We love each other, you know.”

Snow deliberately did not flinch and waited for him to elaborate.

“We’re friends. Dear friends. I know this is tough for you but…I’ve never had a friend like that. You’ve had Ruby and you two will always be best friends and I don’t hold that against you at all but you have to understand that –just as there’s a part of you that belongs to Ruby, no matter how small- Regina has a little piece of my heart too. I know it’s hard for you to see it that way as you’ve always exclusively had me to yourself but that is not the case anymore.”

Snow looked down at the floor and rubbed her arm to hide that flinch. She reminded herself that she didn’t get to feel sorry about this. She had brought it on herself.

“It’s going to take some getting used to.” She finally said and decided that –if she wanted him to forgive her- she was going to have to be honest. She lifted her head to look at him. “I’m not okay with this. I know it’s selfish but I can’t help but feel…she’s stealing you from me. You say it’s not malicious and I _want_ to believe that but she’s betrayed that want so many times before and I just haven’t seen what you’ve seen.”

“Well, maybe if you actually listened to me sometimes and _took_ my advice rather than insisting your way is right, maybe you’ll get to see what I’ve seen.”

Snow opened her mouth to angrily defend herself and then forcibly closed it.

“I do that?”

“Only a lot.” David shrugged a shoulder. “It’s part of the reason I like spending time with Regina. She listens to me. She respects my opinion and –when she asks for it- it’s because she actually wants a second opinion and not just to make me feel like part of the team. We’re partners, Snow. I’m not just her favourite sidekick.”

David was staggered back a step when Snow hurled herself into his arms, wrapping her own tightly around his neck.

“I’m so sorry you think that!” The words sobbed from deep within her and David was more than a little surprised at the depth of feeling behind them. “I’m sorry that I’ve been like that. I never…I’m sorry. You’re not _just_ anything to me. You’re the man I love and I’ll love you until the end of this life and into the next and the next. I’ve been so selfish. Can you ever forgive me?”

David huffed a chuckle.

“Regina’s right, you’re such a little idiot sometimes.” David spoke softly to take the venom from the words and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve already forgiven you, that’s partially why I’m so mad.” He pressed a kiss to her temple and rested his chin on top of her head.

“Why did you never say anything before? Why would you let me treat you that way?”

“Well…because I was Prince Charming.” David huffed a sigh. “I thought I had to _be_ Prince Charming in order for you to love me and I’ve come to realise that I can be loved just for being David Nolan.”

“Of course you can.” She drew back a little so that she could look him in the eye. She looked irritable that he would think otherwise. “Even when you didn’t have Charming’s courage as David Nolan I loved you. I love you. _All_ of you. Whatever bits of you I can have. If one of those bits happens to be Regina’s now then…then I guess I’ll just have to get over myself and let that little bit go.”

David cocked his head, curious.

“If you can learn to be more than Prince Charming and demand that I pay more attention to you…then I can learn to be more than Snow White and give you all the attention and respect that you deserve.” Snow began to back away from him, tugging him with her with her hands on his shirt. He raised an eyebrow but went with her.   

“Really? And what attentions are those?”

“Well,” she smiled and began to tug at the buttons of his shirt, “I suppose that all depends on what your demands are.”

David grinned wickedly.

Demands?

He could think of a few.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, time to be a bit needy. 
> 
> I've been struggling with writer's block for what is in fact nearly two years now. A lot of factors have contributed as to the why of it but I AM trying to get over it. Not just for you guys who have been so excellent in waiting on my getting over whatever and posting again but also so I can sink into some really juicy novel ideas I have kicking around. 
> 
> Anyway, I am now -hopefully- on the mend and will be getting my brain back sooner rather than later. 
> 
> So thanks for hanging in there and as soon as I can figure out how to write that bridging scene in H+1/2 you shall HAVE IT, my pretty darlings. 
> 
> I promise. 
> 
> Thanks again for your continued messages, support and readership on this journey. 
> 
> It's not over yet!


	47. Chapter 47

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A WILD UPDATE APPEARED!
> 
> Seriously though, sorry for the lack of traffic the last few weeks, guys. Life has been a bit of an upside down cake that got stuck in the pan recently. 
> 
> Stuck in the pan and then flipping out a mad angle, hitting the wall, ceiling, fridge and cat all on the way down to the floor. Then the cat starts running around and there's pineapple slices all over the place and syrup behind the oven and the cat's stuck to the to the wallpaper and then comes OFF the wallpaper and just...
> 
> ...yeah. 
> 
> Ahem. 
> 
> ANYWAY- -look at all the fun things I bring you tho! Like...angst and shit. 
> 
> I'm TRYING not to be bored with this. There are cool things to come but I have to set up for the next set piece or else it just won't make sense. I asked my hetero lifemate the other day if I should just ditch and rap this one up with something smaller than I originally had planned (and have already mostly written) and she said 'no, power through and post that shit'. So here we are. You get the bit hoodoo. 
> 
> It's gun git gud. 
> 
> Promise. 
> 
> Eventually. 
> 
> Bear with. 
> 
> kthnxbai.

**Chapter 47 – Dinner**

**_The Sheriff’s Station…_ **

 

Daniel walked into the station’s bullpen and cast about for Ruby. She was easy to spot, being the only inhabitant but he took a moment to study her.

She didn’t seem herself.

For one thing, she hadn’t immediately noticed him at all. She had a book of some sort open in front of her, her elbow propped on the desk, hand buried in her hair to hold up her head and she seemed to be staring at the page blankly.

Daniel inhaled deeply, braced himself for Hyde’s usual sniff of interest that didn’t come because the monster still wasn’t speaking to him, and then cleared his throat.

Ruby jumped as if someone had set off a starter gun in her ear.

“Daniel!”

“Yeah.” Daniel crossed the room at an easy amble and raised his eyebrows at her. “You need help down?”

Ruby glanced down at herself and flushed in embarrassment when she saw her flinch of alarm at being snuck up on had landed her up onto the desk she had been sitting at. She dropped to a crouch and then hopped off the desk.

“I’m fine.” She fidgeted needlessly, searching for something to say. “Everything okay?”

“Not really.” Daniel spoke in a mild tone that was belied by the stark bolt of emotion that flashed behind his eyes. Still, he kept his body language relaxed as he relayed what had transpired. “Snow…happened at the Manor. She set Henry off, he punched Regina through a wall with his magic and I just went and had it out with the little poppet.” He bared his teeth in a semblance of a relaxed smile but it didn’t really work the same way as it would coming from someone that couldn’t turn into a giant shark mouthed people eater.

“Huh.” Ruby blinked several times and then seemed to catch up with herself. “Wait, through a _wall?!_ Is she okay?!”

“She’s fine.” Daniel shrugged a shoulder and let loose a deliberate breath to attempt to settle himself further. “She took a beating but she’s had worse. She’ll be up and about by the time we get back probably.”

“We?” Ruby was still marvelling at little Henry punching _anybody_ through a wall. Never mind his mother. Especially not since they had become family again. What the hell had Snow done?

“I’ve been sent to collect you. We’re all eating at the manor tonight.” Daniel jerked his head for the door. He deliberately played on Ruby’s wolf when she opened her mouth to refuse. “Regina will want you there.”

Ruby stalled in her excuses and nodded.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll grab my coat.”

Daniel eyed the book she had been reading whilst Ruby readied herself to go and he frowned when the only thing he could catch was that it was a tax audit of the local stables. Not the kind of thing typically found at a Sheriff’s office.

Still, Daniel feigned ignorance when Ruby joined him complete with jacket and tidied the book away. She followed his lead out of the Station without another word and Daniel frowned. What on earth had _happened_ last night after he had left her with Mal?

“You okay?”

“Fine!” Ruby spoke brightly and immediately, pasting a brilliant smile on her face.

Daniel just held the door open for her out of the Station and waited patiently for her to lock it behind them. He had the patience of a continent and she would crack first.

“Just tired.” She half lied. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Daniel grunted low in his throat.

“I think…never mind. Do we need to get anything for Regina on the way home?” Ruby stuffed her hands into her pockets and deliberately changed the subject.

“Emma will take care of it.” Daniel shook his head and offered his arm to Ruby. The werewolf immediately latched onto him and hugged herself into his side. She cleaved to the physical comfort in a way she wouldn’t allow herself any other kind. Daniel was pack and he was safe and she very much wanted those things right now.

Daniel quirked his lips in a smirk at the beautiful girl plastered to his side. So, Regina, Mal and Ruby all seemed to think it was perfectly within their right to attach themselves to him whenever they saw fit.

There were worse things in the world he supposed.

Daniel scowled a little when said worse things didn’t bother to poke their head above the level of his subconscious to at least _leer_ at Ruby. Hyde remained obdurately silent and the question was out of Daniel before he could think better of it.

“Is your wolf ever silent?”

“Hmm?” Ruby snapped out of whatever thoughts had forced her to chew on her lip so enthusiastically. She mulled that over and then shook her head slowly. “I don’t…think so. I wasn’t aware of her all the time –because of the curse- but ‘silent’ is the wrong word.”

“What’s the right word?” Daniel crossed the street, tugging Ruby along with him and she trotted along in those ridiculous heels of hers clipping on the road.

“Uhm…’sleeping’?” Ruby hunched her shoulder in a shrug and her mouth twisted. She nodded. “Yeah. That seems right. She was sleeping during the curse. When it broke and the magic came back she was all up and down my business again.” Ruby hugged his arm tighter and her voice devolved into a growl for the last.

“You’re still in control.” It wasn’t a question and he felt her press her cheek against his shoulder for a couple of steps in thanks at his continued faith in her.

“Hyde running silent right now?” Of course she made the leap.

“Sulking I think.” Daniel’s mouth twisted as he mulled that over. “I can’t think why. He got exactly what he wanted last night.”

Daniel smiled when Ruby laughed despite herself.

“Lucky Reggie.”

“She thought so.” Daniel agreed primly and Ruby laughed again. She slowly began to relax against him, forgetting what was plaguing her.

“Sure, rub it in.” Ruby made a production of rolling her eyes. She turned thoughtful again just as quickly. “That collar that Reggie made for me during Wolf’s Time, it was total bullshit wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Daniel nodded. “She enchanted it to appear magical –ironically I suppose- but it had no effect on your transformation at all. You remained in this form under your own power with no help for her.”

“Uh-huh, until I smelled her blood and went berserk.” Ruby drawled, hugging his arm more tightly again.

“If you’re looking for censure for that, you had best find a different audience.” Daniel snorted.

“True story.” Ruby hummed. Working up to what she wanted to ask. “Do you…think she could?”

“Could what?” Daniel checked for traffic again before crossing onto Mifflin Street.

“Make me something that would stop me from…losing control.”

“What’s wrong with your cloak?” Daniel slowed to an amble on their path towards the Manor. She probably wouldn’t want this conversation to happen in front of anyone else.

“I can’t wear my cloak when I’m…I can’t wear it all the time. I was wondering if she could make something a bit more…discreet.”

Daniel mulled that over. He knew fine and well what she wanted to be doing without the risk of losing control. The way her eyes had caught on his own torque was proof enough that she was thinking of asking for one of her own and he considered his options.

 _If_ she and Mal were going to be…an item then she’d want something that wasn’t clothing. If that was the case, if she really was convinced she couldn’t remain in control, then he was the last person that should be telling her to just believe in herself.

Had he not worried himself that Hyde would overtake him at the worst possible time? Was that not one of the reasons he still wore the torque even if Regina had broken the enchantment that kept him from removing it?

Daniel considered what he might say. What he _could_ say to comfort Ruby. She obviously didn’t think she was in control anymore and Daniel knew enough of her history and had seen how Regina struggled to control her own considerable power to know that it was something that neither woman ever truly forgot about…unless confronted with an equal who could take what they were dishing out.

Like how Hyde allowed Daniel to keep up with Regina and Mal…well, Mal was a dragon. What more could the wolf want?

Daniel looked down at Ruby, watching him closely, and knew that she was in no state to hear any of that. Not from him. Mal would have to prove herself on her own.

“I know that she has forced werewolves to revert back to their human shape with a kind of miniature moon before.” Daniel allowed slowly. He had made the mistake of asking Regina one day what she could do with magic. Four hours later, she had admitted that it might have been easier to ask her what she _couldn’t_ do. “Perhaps she might be able to make a charm that would act similarly for you?”

Ruby’s expression told him well enough that remaining in human form wasn’t enough for her but they had arrived at the front door only for it to swing open before they could even reach it.

“Ruby!”

Henry bounded down the front steps, obviously in much better spirits than he had been before Daniel had left, and hurled himself into Ruby’s arms. She was every inch his aunt in that moment and caught him without hesitation.

“Hey, squirt!” Ruby forgot any trace of her own anguish and focussed entirely on Henry. “You okay, big guy?”

“I’m okay.” Henry mumbled, sounding embarrassed into her shirt. “Are you coming to check on mom?”

“Coming for dinner.” Ruby snorted as if she wasn’t worried at all for Regina and let herself be pulled inside. “I heard there was a free meal and came a-running.”

“We’re making tacos!” Henry lifted his head to grin up at her. “Emma and I are making Five by Five chilli and tacos for dinner.”

“Tacos!?” Ruby gaped. “Well, now I’m sold.”

“I’m going up to check on her.” Daniel murmured to Ruby and she nodded to show that she had heard but let herself be led away to the living room to help lift some of the larger chunks of the ruined wall out of the way.

Henry babbled to her earnestly the entire time, desperately trying to distract himself from what he had done by making it all better. Poor little guy, he wasn’t going to fully unclench until Regina was back downstairs and at least snarking at Emma from an armchair.

To that end, Daniel jogged up the stairs two at a time to the master bedroom. He strode in without knocking but ground to a halt at the sight that greeted him.

Maleficent took up the majority of the bed and she was both in her dragon form and so incredibly not.

Daniel blinked when confronted with the alien sight and studied her.

Purple and black scales covered her entire body, twin horns curled back from her brow but her mass of golden hair still spread like a skein of silk over the bedsheets. She was mostly human shaped though sported her tail and wings alongside horns and scales. Wicked claws tipped her fingers and toes and fire glowed within her chest.

Daniel was so caught up in studying this new shape that Mal had mastered that he very nearly missed Regina tucked into the larger female’s side. She was coiled amongst Mal’s tail and other limbs, a wing arching over her to keep the heat and magic Mal was exuding in there with her.

The last thing that he noticed was that they were both naked.

Daniel hurried to close the bedroom door lest someone wander by and the sound of the door clipping quietly closed woke Mal. Or spurred her into opening one lurid green eye at least.

“You return.” Her voice was deeper than her human shaped voice but not the thrumming rumble of the dragon. Mal lifted her head and yawned cavernously to show off massive white fangs and a green forked tongue.

“How’s she doing?” Daniel edged closer to the bed and then crawled straight onto it when Regina opened an eye to smile sleepily at him.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Daniel hesitated a moment when Mal shifted, he was very aware that Hyde wasn’t talking to him right now and that Mal was considerably larger than he in this shape. That and her dragon form might come with more possessive instincts than Mal usually exhibited.

He needn’t have worried.

Mal lifted her wing expectantly and Daniel found himself in the odd position of being pulled beneath it alongside Regina. She hummed in pleasure, welcoming him into her arms and burrowing against his chest.

“Warm.” She yawned into him and he chuckled, settling himself carefully.

Mal folded her wing neatly about them both and settled her head against the pillows again, careful not to rake them with her horns or webbed ears.

“How are you?” Daniel wound his arms around Regina but reached up to touch the membrane of Mal’s wing. A ripple went through the thrumming skin but she didn’t flinch away. He tentatively stroked.

Mal purred.

“Lazy.” Regina yawned again and then began to stretch against him, waking properly now. “Cosy. Better.”

“Verbose.” Mal mocked gently without opening her eyes again.

“Shut up.” Regina elbowed Mal but the dragon didn’t even have the grace to flinch. “You went to see Snow.”

It wasn’t a question as she turned to Daniel but he answered it anyway.

“I thought it overdue.”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that a body might need disposed of?” Mal murmured.

“Quiet, you.” Regina shot a dark glance at Mal and then tilted her head up to look at Daniel. “It went…well?”

“It went.” Daniel shrugged a shoulder, focussed on the scales feathering over the dorsal side of Mal’s wings. This halfway form of hers truly was impressive. He felt her tail coil tighter about him, the very tip of it curling around his bicep.

He rallied himself to answer Regina when he found that she was watching him patiently.

“She cried.” He admitted.

Mal snorted smoke.

“Of course she did.” Regina frowned as if she had expected that. “I’m not worried about _her_ I’m worried about you.”

“Hyde didn’t make an appearance.” Daniel reassured her.

“I repeat; worried about _you_.” Regina frowned, beginning to think he was being deliberately obtuse.

“I’m fine. I was worried about you but…” Daniel trailed off when Regina propped herself up on her elbow so she could arch a brow down at him. Her jaw rocked to the side. He huffed out a slow breath. “It’s not entirely her fault that I died. I told her that. I…realise that. Cora is far more responsible than anyone else involved. She always will be.”

Mal verbalised his feelings on the matter by letting loose a growl that rattled the steel reinforced bed.

“I didn’t make peace with her. I don’t know if I can or if it’s even something I want to do but…I don’t know.” Daniel stroked her hair back behind her ear and smiled at Regina. “It’s done now and she no longer matters.”

Regina studied him for a long moment from beneath hooded lashes and hummed deep in her throat.

“So in an afternoon, you did what it took me forty years to accomplish?”

“I’m a quick study.” Daniel smirked at her and Regina growled, leaning down and biting him on the cheek in rebuke. He gusted a laugh at the unexpected action though it had far from hurt him.

“Hmm, sorry.” Regina pressed a kiss to the same spot she had bitten. “Dragon pheromones again.”

“ _Liar._ ” Mal hummed a deep chuckle.

“It’s true! They always make me more bity. I wonder who I get that from?”

“Not I.” Mal shifted carefully around them, this new form of hers had been softened as much as she could make it but it was still quite pointy when pressed flush against human skin.

 She disengaged herself from about the couple tucked in her coils and magic bloomed over her. Wings, tail and horns receding, her scales replaced with soft skin, retaking her human shape once more.

“Aww.” Daniel frowned a little at the loss even as the bedframe creaked in relief at not having to suddenly hold up several hundred pounds of dragon hybrid. In that shape she had been _considerably_ heavier than she was now. Even with her bones hollowed for flight. “Henry will be sorry he missed it.”

“I have a strict Over Twenty Rule.” Mal hummed and stretched luxuriously on her back.

“That is my _son_.” Regina bared her teeth a little at Mal.

“Are you warning me off him or staking a claim on me?” Mal grinned brightly, all her sharp teeth bared at either prospect. “I remind you that immortality means I can wait.”

Regina just watched Mal for a long moment, a myriad of retorts on her tongue, but then simply launched herself at the dragon. Mal crowed a laugh when Regina tackled her and bit her hard on the shoulder, her fingers digging into Mal’s ribs and tickling her ruthlessly.

“No! Stop! I surrender!” Mal laughed, trying to fend Regina off and both women squeaked when Daniel loomed over them and tumbled them onto their backs.

“ _Ladies_.” Daniel was braced with his hands and knees bracketing both Regina and Mal. His eyes glittered as he looked down at them.

Regina arched a brow, wondering how far he might go and was disappointed when she saw him rein himself in. He inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring at their scent, his throat rumbled with a pleased growl at the sight they made but he decided on the better part of valour.

For now.

“Now that you are feeling better, it might be an idea to go down and reassure Henry that you aren’t going to fall apart.” Daniel spoke to Regina and then turned to Mal. “Yourself might also want to find clothes. We have guests.”

“Guests?” Regina scowled. She didn’t like the sound of that, the number of people she was willing to put up with were already in the house.

“Guest. Ruby is here. David said she was in need of company.”

Neither Regina nor Daniel missed the way Mal’s eyes widened and she stiffened. An enigmatic dragon she might be but that control didn’t extend nearly so much to her human form. They both ignored it though.

“So I shall leave you to get dressed whilst I take a shower.” Daniel leaned down and kissed Regina on the mouth. After a moment’s hesitation –and to see if he could get away with it- he did the same for Mal. He huffed out a breath and forced himself to reverse off the bed.

Mal looked surprised but not offended at his overture and Regina looked… _smug_.

Daniel shook his head sharply to try and dial it all back to a manageable eleven. He pried himself away and turned to go into the en suite.

“A cold – _cold_ \- shower.”

 

**_Downstairs, Later…_ **

 

Ruby was so intensely aware that Mal was in the house that she could barely function.

All she could smell was dragon. She could practically taste Mal on the air and it was driving her nuts.

She had heard Mal speaking earlier, a rumbling growl had drawn her attention to Regina’s room upstairs and when she had recognised how closely hers, Mal’s and Daniel’s scents were all intertwined, she had slammed the mental door to that conversation closed before she heard more than she wanted to.

They had been up there for an awfully long time after all.

“Rubes, I think you killed it.”

“Huh?” Ruby looked up from her task of shredding the lettuce and then back down at the offending vegetable to see that it hadn’t been so much shredded as…reduced to a fine paste. “Oh.”

“It’s cool. We can make a slaw with it?” Emma eyeballed the mess of what was supposed to have been the basis for a salad and eyed Ruby again. “You alright?”

“Fine!” Ruby smiled brightly and it slipped from her face when Emma just propped her hip against the island worktop and folded her arms over her chest. “What?”

“You know you stink of bullshit, right?”

Ruby scowled at the notion of being offensive to _anyone’s_ sense of smell, even one so dulled as a human’s.

“Don’t get all growly.” Emma warned her. “You’ve been twitchy all night and I know that you’re more carnivore than the average bear but did the poor lettuce really deserve to be minced?”

“It’s nothing.” Ruby dragged a bowl closer and dumped the lettuce mulch into it. She went in search of onion and mayonnaise. It really was going to have to be some kind of coleslaw.

“So there is an ‘it’?”

“You’re as bad as your mother.” Ruby growled and stifled it when she saw Emma flinch.

“Really probably not the best day for that kind of comparison, Ruby.” Emma muttered and turned back to the chilli pot. She pressed her lips together and stared into the bubbling stew for a while.

It smelled _fantastic_. She and Henry had been cooking up a storm all afternoon since Daniel had left and Mal had taken Regina off for a nap. They had cleared the worst of the rubble from the living room, vacuumed, disposed of the kindling that had been the coffee table and the rest of the time had been spent teaching Henry how to make and bake tacos from scratch.

Still, he was off setting the table and the lack of his nervous babble had left a yawning silence between Emma and Ruby and forced Emma to confront the werewolf about what the hell was chewing on her tail.

“Sorry.” Ruby sounded genuine, her eyes trailing over the hole in the kitchen wall that now looked clean through to the huge living room windows. She considered what to say for long moments and heaved a sigh. “She’s not a bad person, you know.”

“Who isn’t?” Emma tasted the chilli and nodded to herself. She went on the hunt for cinnamon sticks. She’d put in three. Now, where were they…?

“Your mom.”

Emma flinched and dropped the cinnamon stick she had scooped from the chilli back into the sauce with a splash.

“She’s not…”

“She IS.” Ruby scooped up a couple of onions and gave a sniff. She needn’t have bothered, everything in Regina’s house was kept at premium freshness. She was surprised that Granny hadn’t begged the spell from Regina before now. “You might not like it and it might not make you comfortable, but she’s your mom. Whilst we’re at it, David’s your dad. You could –I dunno- cut them some slack.”

Emma huffed out a breath through her nose and found the second cinnamon stick. One more to go. She applied herself to the fishing expedition with far more attention than it needed.

“I know you’re mad at them.” Ruby continued in a gentler tone. “And I know what it is to feel betrayed by the person that raised you…so I’m here. If you want to talk.”

Emma looked at Ruby sharply.

“What?”

“Why?” Emma narrowed her eyes a little.

Ruby blinked at her.

“Why what?”

“Why would you…you’re Mary- -Snow’s best friend. Why would you listen to me bitch about her?”

“Well, I’m Snow’s BFF, I’m Regina’s Sister By Another Mister, an in-law to Daniel, Rachel is attached to the whole business _somehow_ , I’m David’s wingman and your godmother. If you think I haven’t learned how to juggle loyalties by now then you’re really behind the rest of the class.” Ruby set to dicing the onion with only slightly less ferocity than she had treated the lettuce.

“You’re…my godmother?”

“For sure.” Ruby twisted to look at Emma. “You didn’t know?”

“I’m still getting over being related to Snow White and Prince Charming.” Emma smiled tightly. “I’m really dreading other familial attachments.”

“Well, I’m the cool aunt, so no dread required.”

Emma was silent for a long moment, digesting that, and turned to Ruby suddenly.

“Were you there?”

Ruby frowned.

“When…when they made the decision. To put me through the wardrobe. Were you there?”

Ruby slowly set the knife down and turned to look at Emma. She considered her a long moment and nodded slowly.

“Yeah. The whole war council was. We were talking about Regina’s threat. The Dark Curse was coming, we knew that much, we had no defence against it. Nothing. It would wipe out all of us. Think about…if CNN announced Russia had launched a nuke at us. Same kind of panic. Except we had weeks to stew on it.”

Emma rocked back on her heels and frowned. She hadn’t thought of it that way.

“You don’t…you haven’t seen how far Regina has come. You haven’t seen how much she’s changed.” Ruby began but Emma cut her off.

“Yeah I have.”

“No.” Ruby spoke firmly. “You haven’t. I can’t… _convey_ how mind bogglingly terrifying that woman was to us. What kind of threat she represented. Then Blue told us that she was casting the Dark Curse. Something that _none of us_ understood. She was casting a curse that she had won from the dragon Maleficent, a curse written by the Dark One, a curse that couldn’t be broken. A curse that would take us to a different _world._ A world we had NO IDEA would be as cushy as this one. We didn’t know we were getting literacy and indoor plumbing in the deal. We didn’t know that Regina was going to let us live in a peaceful little hamlet in a super power nation with all the modern amenities. We had no concept of modern medicine or technology that would level the playing field between civilians and sorcerers. We didn’t know _anything_.”

Emma tried to turn that over in her head. She’d never thought of it that way before.

“Okay, replace ‘magic’ with ‘light’. That’s what it was like back home. Magic was everywhere. It gave life. Sure, it took it away too, but the sun can kill you too. Now imagine being told you and everyone you love is going to a world without light. You’ll never see the sun again. Nor the moon. You’ll never know warmth or sight and it will just be you and your friends and family alone in the dark.”

Emma turned the heat down under the chilli and turned to give Ruby her full attention. She was frowning, but willing to listen.

“So we were desperate Emma. We had _nothing_. We were losing. No, we had already lost. Then…then Blue told us there was one option. One hope. We could send you on ahead. Send you alone and just pray that…that you’d come through for us. That –hah- that good would triumph in the end.” Ruby’s mouth twisted and she heaved a sigh. She gave a bitter smile. “Decisions like this are easier when you’re standing on the edge of the abyss and it’s giving you some serious side eye in return. It was easier to hate Regina with all the war propaganda that we had practically been raised on. It was easier to see Blue as the only light in the dark because she was the only magic user that had offered to stand at our side.”

“So it was Blue.” Emma said slowly. “Blue that told them to send me.”

“We thought it was our only option.” Ruby hunched our shoulders. She hummed a bitter laugh. “Imagine if we’d had Google. We could have looked all of this up and saved ourselves some heartache.”

Emma smiled a little wanly at that. She looked down at her hands for a moment and rallied herself to ask her last question.

“Did anybody…did anyone argue for me to stay?” Emma hunched her shoulders. “To try and win another way?”

“Oh, hon,” Ruby’s shoulders sagged and she stepped forward to hug Emma but pulled up short when the other woman tensed, they weren’t there yet, “of _course_ we did. None of us wanted you to go. None of us wanted to send a _child_ to fight our war. Snow _refused_. Just point blank refused to give you up. You know what she’s like. Finding a way and all that. You were –are- her baby. You were still in her belly, part of her, and she couldn’t imagine that not being the case. Truth be told…I never believed she’d go through with it. Not until the curse rolled over and it was just her and Charming against Regina.” Ruby was lost for a moment in the memory and frowned as she tried to recall it in every detail. Some things the curse had eaten bigger chunks out of than others.

“I was trying to outrun it. Trying to get back to them but I was…waylaid.” Ruby frowned, trying to remember exactly what had happened. She shook her head. “It must have overtaken me before I could get back to the castle. I never made it back to fight with them.”

“I shot you.”

Ruby flinched and spun to see Regina standing in the doorway. Ruby stiffened all over when Mal loomed behind her dressed in loose jeans low on her hips and an orange Iron Man tee shirt straining over her chest.

Ruby gulped.

She regretted it when all she could smell on the dragon was _Regina_. Regina and Daniel. Their scents were all over her. Skin deep. Ruby knew of one thing that embedded that kind of scent into the skin and her mind shied violently from the thought before she could complete it.

“Well, had you shot. Silver tipped arrow. I had no desire to fend off an irate werewolf when I had better targets in mind.” Regina padded into the kitchen and went up on her toes to look into the chilli pot. “Smells good.”

Emma blinked at the sudden shift in conversational gear.

“What?”

“The chilli. It smells appetising. You didn’t have to. We could have ordered in.”

“Uh…well, it’s the only thing I can cook so don’t get too excited.” Emma murmured, still thrown by the history lesson she had just received.

“You shot me?” Ruby demanded of Regina. “Dick move.”

“You bit me. I consider us even.”

“ _When?_ ” Ruby demanded, throwing up her hands and doing her best to ignore Mal. “When did I bite you?”

“The battle oooff…the Blooded Gates.” Regina squinted at the ceiling as if attempting to recall. “Yes. I distinctly remember you spear tackling my horse from beneath me and then nearly shearing my leg clean off with a tousle of your jaws.”

Ruby opened her mouth and then clipped her teeth together when nothing happened. She had no defence. She narrowed her eyes at Regina.

“Can’t prove that was me. There were _lots_ of werewolves in the Enchanted Forest.” She hunched her shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “Could have been anybody.”

“Of course, dear.”

“Wait, is that why you can turn into a wolf now?” Emma turned to Regina. Henry had told her that his mom was a werewolf part time but she had never gotten much of a handle on what that meant. “Did Ruby turn you?”

“No.” Regina shook her head. “Inherent magic trumps that of an outside influence. My magic would never allow me to be turned into something else without my express permission. The reason I can take on the dire wolf form that Ruby can when I so wish it is because I accepted Granny’s alliance when she offered it to me. Rule one with magic: it’s all about choice.”

“You going to teach me enough to make _informed_ choices?” Emma canted back against the kitchen worktop and folded her arms over her chest. Considering her prior conversation, she was a little sick of magic users deciding what she did and didn’t need to know.

“That depends.” Regina admitted easily enough.

“On?”

“Whether or not you ask the right questions.” Regina bared her teeth in something for a smile. “For example, you haven’t asked the most obvious question about your parents’ plan.”

Emma frowned, realising she was about to made to look the idiot and decided to just get it over with.

“And that question would be?”

“Do you really think sending a defenceless baby through a portal was your parent’s _first_ choice? Do you honestly think that would be ANY parent’s plan A?”

Emma frowned and Ruby nearly smacked herself in the face for missing the most obvious thing about the whole deal. Of course, Emma didn’t _know_. She hadn’t been there.

“What do you mean?”

“The original plan was to send Snow. With you.” Ruby waved her hand when she realised she was ballsing up the explanation. “I mean, when she was pregnant with you, she was going to go through the portal and raise you here. She was going to tell you everything and fight at your side when the time came.”

Emma blinked rapidly and absorbed that.

“But…”

“You were premature.” Regina shrugged a shoulder casually as if she wasn’t rearranging Emma’s entire world view. “You came a couple of weeks early.  The wardrobe was just finished, Snow was to go through that night before she went into labour. As I understand it?” Regina looked over at Ruby to double check.

Ruby nodded.

“But that means that she and David…” Emma trailed off, frowning. She lifted her hand and shrugged her shoulder. “Snow would have been _decades_ older than him.”

Regina nodded and peered into the chilli again before Emma shooed her away.

“It’s not ready yet.” She fended off her host. “Their marriage would have been effectively over. Mary Margaret would have been old enough to be his mother. Physically.”

“An opportunity missed.” Mal drawled and barely grumbled when Regina elbowed her.

“Quite.” Regina agreed easily enough. “The point is that was their plan. They were _that_ terrified of me and…they loved you that much.” Regina shrugged her shoulder. “I don’t pretend to understand the attraction between those two but I do know a thing or two about sacrificing for your child. Snow had already made the decision to leave David for your sake. Neither of them were happy about it but that was their original plan. They didn’t _want_ to give you up. I forced their hand. Gleefully and maliciously.”

Emma absorbed that for a moment and let the cards fall in her head. She huffed out a slow breath and frowned. She glanced up at Regina.

“You were really that scary?”

“Horrifying.” Regina smirked a little and stole a slice of pepper from the chopping board.

“Why didn’t they tell me? The whole time I’ve been yomping about the magical wilderness with Snow and she didn’t think to lead with ‘yeah, by the way, totes wanted to keep you but your co-mother with Henry hurled her monkey wrench shaped self into it and totally banjo’d _that_ POA’?”

Ruby’s lips twitched when she imagined Snow saying anything even remotely like that and Regina covered her chuckle by eating her pepper.

“Hmm, now, I’m just guessing,” Regina gathered her words carefully, “but I suppose you weren’t exactly in the mood for _conversation_ when trapped with your roommate who had suddenly become your mother?”

Emma’s jaw rocked to the side and Mal sniggered.

“More like her parents than she would like to admit.” Mal spoke to Regina but made no effort to lower her voice.

“She won’t give you chilli if you’re mean.” Regina pointed out and Mal shrugged an elegant shoulder.

“I shall eat some of yours.”

“And promptly be stabbed with a fork.” Regina snorted. She was _starving_ and had missed the class that others seemed to get about the sharing of food.

Mal was cut off from picking a fight when Henry bounded through the hole in the wall that he had created and his eyes landed on Regina.

“Mom!” He cleared the distance between himself and his mother in a single leap and hurled his arms around her waist. “You feeling better?”

“Hungry.” Regina nodded and stroked his hair, she dropped a kiss on top of his head. “I hear you’ve been learning to make tacos.”

“And Five by Five Chilli!” Henry beamed up at her, making no effort to loosen his hold on her now that he was confident she really was feeling better.

 His magic could feel that hers was all smoothed out again. It had gotten bunched up in healing her wounds when he had punched her through the wall but she was all good again. Feeling that was more convincing to him than any words she could have spoken. She was okay, she really was okay.

“It smells delicious.” Regina enthused. “Emma won’t let me taste it though.”

“It’s a surprise.” Henry grinned for her and tugged at her, pulling her towards the dining room. “I was about to set the table. Ruby helped me finish cleaning the living room, come sit.”

“Oh, I’m to be waited on hand and foot? It’s good to be queen.” Regina let herself be led away, aware of Mal on her heels.

Aware also of Ruby’s eyes following them both.

Regina turned her head and arched an eyebrow at the werewolf.

“What?!” Ruby immediately fell back on the defensive.

Regina smirked.

“Later.”

 

**_The Aforementioned Later…_ **

 

“I don’t need an escort.” Ruby grumbled, needlessly fussing with her jacket.

“Of course not, nothing would dare harm you.” Regina agreed mildly enough but padded in Ruby’s wake out of the house and down the garden path. She pursed her lips and considered her sister.

She’d been like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof all night. It had taken a few minutes for Regina to figure out why (alright, an embarrassingly long time to figure out why) but once she had she had been in a quandary as to what to do with the information.

Ruby was… _jealous_.

Regina had been forced to haul her own wolf dangerously close to the surface in order to verify her suspicions but the scent of jealousy was rife all up and down Ruby’s business. There was no mistaking the hue of it really. Regina was actually surprised that a physical cloud of it wasn’t visible to even the civilians of their little party.

Ruby, usually a social creature to the core, had barely tolerated a family dinner. She had been silent and borderline sullen unless directly spoken to and when someone had been brave or foolish enough to try and include her in the proceedings, she had all but snarled her responses before going back to eating far more than her fair share of chili in an attempt to sate _something_ in her.

Regina dropped her hands into her pockets and sauntered along behind Ruby, eyeballing her from the back and wondering how best to stick her oar into this situation.

“Will you back off?!” Ruby whirled on Regina suddenly, teeth bared and Regina slowed to a halt and raised her eyebrows.

“Ruby…I’m over six feet away from you.”

Ruby frowned, tunnelling a hand through her hair and her eyes dropped to double check the distance. She growled under her breath when she found Regina was right (an annoying habit) and she turned away, rolling her shoulders restlessly.

“Why? Do I smell or something?” Ruby snapped, hackles she didn’t have rising along her spine.

Regina just studied her for a bland moment and then looked away in order to try and cover the roll of her eyes.

Ruby growled audibly.

“Do not think to challenge me in my own home, pup.” Regina’s eyes slid back to Ruby, her teeth very visible as she spoke. “I’ll send you home with your tail between your legs and you know it.”

Ruby struggled to control herself. Jeez, what the hell was _wrong_ with her? She was NEVER like this. Almost never. Mostly never.

Crap.

“Sorry.” Ruby didn’t sound it even remotely but Regina nodded magnanimously and let her little wolf save face.

“Understandable that Mal would put you on edge.”

Ruby tensed but Regina continued as if she hadn’t noticed.

“She’s an apex predator. Your wolf senses not only her augmented physicality but her magical power as well.” Regina cocked her head. “Werewolves learned a long time ago to hate magic not their own. Those that survived the Great Culls tended to have a heightened sense of it. You’ll get used to it. Learn to ignore it in time.”

“Right.” Ruby managed to grit out from behind clenched teeth. “Of course.”

“You learned to tolerate me, after all.” Regina smirked lazily. “I’m going to invite Mal to stay. The more she smells like Daniel and I, the more likely your wolf is to not see her as a threat.”

“Oh.” Ruby could think of NO other response to that.

“So you went to the Hunt and Game shop?”

“What?” Ruby frowned at the whiplash change in topic.

“Daniel said you wanted me to think up something to keep you…in this form.” Regina nodded to Ruby. “I can only assume that you found Sher Kahn to your liking.”

“Uuuh…yeah.” Ruby shrugged her shoulders. She’d never seen the man/tiger/whatever in her life but she wasn’t about to admit to Regina that she had a dragon shaped problem in the form of…whatever you called the third person in a relationship like Mal, Regina and Daniel had.

“Very well.” Regina smiled serenely and nodded. “I’ll get started on it tomorrow morning. I’m sure Mal will be willing to help.”

“I’ll bet.” Ruby forced a rictus of a smile. She tried not to let her teeth get out of control but the idea of why Mal would be there in the morning was getting a little too much for Ruby.

Regina gave another serene smile and Ruby had never more wanted to bite her. Not even when she had been out for Snow and Charming’s head. That at least had been malicious. Regina had been _trying_ to cause pain. Now she was doing it because her best friend was back from the dead and they were apparently… _close_.

“Well, I, uh, gotta go.” Ruby waved with a vague flap of her hand.

“You should go for a run.” Regina nodded once. “Mal has taken the territories of the highest hills around her aerie but she has no problem with you running there. She says there is a wolf pack that has recently moved in. Perhaps they will run with you. I’d go with you but I’m still a little…concertinaed.”

Ruby’s mouth twisted and she felt like a total heel.

It wasn’t that Regina was entirely reformed. Nor that she was ‘good’. Nothing nearly so trite. She had a malicious predatory streak running through her a mile wide and it swam as close to the surface as she could allow it on any given day…but she always leashed it for family. She always put her own needs aside to help those she loved and Ruby was now lucky enough to be included in that little circle and she was bitchy because she was turning into a fucking Katy Perry song where certain blonde reptiles were involved.

Blonde reptiles that were _very much_ on Team Reggie and had no interest in jumping ship. Then again, considering Regina, who would?

Ruby’s chest hurt at the prospect of losing something that she had never had but if she was losing it to Regina who had lost so much and been beaten so low throughout her entire life…what kind of sister would she be to resent that?

“Oof!” Regina staggered back a step when Ruby suddenly all but spear tackled her in a fierce hug.  She immediately held the girl back, wondering if she had gone too far in her poking and prodding. “Okay?”

“I’m good.” Ruby stepped away just as quickly, refusing to look Regina in the eye. “Must just be…a run. I need to run.” She shoved her hands in her jean pockets and nodded, scuffing her toe against the ground and praying that Regina would drop it.

“Very well.” Regina hesitated a moment more, strongly considering teleporting Mal out here and just bodily flinging the damn lizard at Ruby but…no. Best that Ruby came to the realisation that she was not in fact as straight as she had thought she was and that if exceptions were to be made for anyone then it should certainly be Mal. “Text me when you get in.”

“Sure.” Ruby nodded, still refusing to look at Regina.

Regina hesitated a moment more and then huffed out a breath.

“Goodnight, little sister.” Regina turned to head back inside, muttering something disparaging about… _lizbians_?

“Night, big sis.” Ruby watched Regina go and her eyes travelled over to the living room window. She resolutely turned away when she could make out a pair of purple and green eyes watching her from the dim room inside.

No point in looking at what she’d never have.

Ruby summoned her wolf. The change boiling over her with more vigour than she had felt since her berserk days and she hit the sidewalk on all fours. She tilted her head back, drinking in the scents of the falling night and her ears pinned back, a deep growl thundering from her chest when she smelled something… _alien_.

Nose quivering, Ruby prowled out into the street. Her crimson gold eyes tracked up and down, searching for the intruder. Her hackles rose like iron filings under a magnet and that low growl _would not stop_.

Meat hook claws clicked against the asphalt of the road, her eyes glowed like lanterns and long ivory teeth bared in a rippling snarl that shivered through the air.

Shivered through the air until it…hit something.

Ruby _roared_.

A booming bark that rattled the windows of every house in the street. She lunged forward, all ten claws on her front paws grasping for a target, her teeth snapping down in the sweet anticipation of a lethal bite and…nothing.

Nothing was there.

Ruby snorted, a head full of that alien scent still.

Had she been in her human form, she might have been able to put a word to what it was about the smell that rattled her so. For a wolf never forgets. Not a sight nor sound nor smell. If it has encountered it before, it will remember it again. Ruby had not forgotten this smell, she had simply never encountered it before and had she been more focussed on the why of the intruder and not on simply finding something to tear apart then she might have been altogether more alarmed.

But she was the wolf now and the wolf wanted to _do_ not to _think_.

Her eyes narrowed and she spun neatly on her tail.

High ground, she needed high ground if she was going to hunt this thing. Hunt it and kill it and feel better about being predator supreme in her own territory. Stupid flying lizard that was not pack or not.

Ruby took off down the street and headed for the forest. The forest helped clear her head of the human nonsense. When she ran beneath the trees and felt the dirt beneath her paws she might know what about this new scent troubled her so.

It would come to Ruby. Eventually.

But far too late for it to do any of them any good.

Ruby did have a name for what she had scented, even though she had never met the woman in person. She smelled similar enough to other scents she had come across and werewolves can scent familial connections.

The truest word for it would have been ‘evil’.

Though, in reality, she would come to label that particular strain as one thing and one thing only.

Cora.   

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOZ IF MISTAKES! I AM SUPER OUT OF PRACTICE BEING EVEN A PRETEND WRITER!


	48. Chapter 48

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TA-DAAAAAHHH!
> 
> Believe it or not, all of the following is plot related. 
> 
> Go figure.

**Chapter 48 – Goddamn Katy Perry**

**_The Manor…_ **

 

Regina awoke surrounded by belting heat on all sides. Her eyes fluttered open and she recognised that it was late in the morning due to the bright light streaming in through the curtains. She stretched as much as she was able in the wall of muscle and heat around her and then frowned when there was distinctly more of it than there should be and some of it was a lot softer than it usually was.

Paying a bit more attention to who was in bed with her, she felt Daniel’s velvet steel body pressed up against her back, his scar tingling against her spine, his staples cool in contrast and one brawny arm wrapped around her front so that his large hand could snake under the tee shirt she wore and span her breast, his thumb sweeping absently back and forth over it even in sleep.

That was all business as usual, she was quite accustomed to waking up with him wrapped so pleasantly around her.

The woman plastered to her front was new.

Mal slept soundly in front of Regina, cushioned amongst the many pillows that Regina liked to nest in of a night, her cheek rested on Regina’s shoulder, one of her legs was between Regina’s and her slim arm was wrapped over Regina’s waist below Daniel’s arm.

Regina smirked. She had certainly woken up to worse things.

“Good morning.” Mal murmured into Regina’s neck. She stroked her claws over the exposed skin of Regina’s waist. “Sleep well?”

“Very. Your doing?” Regina smirked teasing lightly. She spoke in a low voice so as to not wake Daniel. Though considering the man could sleep like a log unless danger was in the offing, she wasn’t overly worried.

“Daniel’s I think.” Mal pressed a kiss to Regina’s neck and Regina returned it with one to Mal’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel…excitable.” Regina grinned when she realised it was true.

Mal didn’t tense but she certainly wakened further.

“What kind of excitable?”

“The playful kind.”

“Not narrowing it down.”

Regina chuckled.

“I want to do a dragon.”

She felt the sweep of Mal’s long lashes against her neck as she blinked repeatedly.

“I think I am out of the habit of recognising innuendo.”

Regina laughed softly and she hugged her arm around her friend’s waist.

“I think, if you want to bed me properly, Daniel will have to be awake. To watch at the very least.”

“Daniel is awake and he will settle for nothing less than full participation.” Daniel rumbled behind her.

 Regina squirmed back against him to show that she had known full well he was listening and was not at all opposed to the idea. He pinched the nipple he had been stroking but made no further move to escalate things. He wasn’t quite awake yet and was content to simply enjoy having two beautiful women in bed with him even if there were no further acrobatics.

Yet.

“I _meant_ ,” Regina decided to clarify when both of her bed partners appeared to be waking up and misreading her intentions entirely, “that I wish to try shifting into a dragon shape. I’ve never done it before and I think it high time I learned.”

Mal heaved an affected sigh.

“I have only just awakened and my morning is already in decline.”

“There’s always later.” Regina lifted her head and nipped Mal affectionately on the cheek with her teeth in a dragon kiss. “Now, come on, we need to make tracks if we want to get out of here before Henry gets to us. I don’t want him learning how to turn into a giant winged reptile quite yet.”

With that, Regina wriggled out from between them and scrambled off the end of the bed to go and shower.

Mal lifted her head to watch her go and frowned a little. She disliked the cold the distinct lack of Regina had subjected her to. With a grunt of displeasure, she moved to rectify the situation and slithered over the mattress to tuck herself into Daniel’s side.

She felt him tense a moment in surprise but then relax just as quickly. Mal purred at the heat belting from him and she curled deeper into the curve of his body surrounding herself in as much warmth as possible.

“I take it this is not the first time that you and the little wife have shared a bed?” Daniel yawned but curled his arm around her head to stroke her hair and show there was no hard feelings between them.

Well, aside from his waking cock digging into her hip but Mal accepted that for the compliment it was.

“Rumple is not the only teacher that Regina has had. He taught her magic and I taught her…” Mal opened her eyes and wondered how to put it. She felt his powerful heart thump against her cheek through the wall of his chest. “I taught her that bedplay need not be about power.”

Daniel let loose a slow sigh at the kind way she had worded things but he swept aside the pain of what he had missed and what Regina had been robbed of and focussed on the present. He listened to Regina moving around the bathroom, the hiss of the shower splattering water against the tiles in the stall. She was humming to herself. Playful indeed.

“Thank you.” He murmured.

“It was not selfless.” Mal chuckled. “Regina well knows what she’s doing and she is a _very_ fast learner.”

Daniel laughed softly.

“She is very giving.” He agreed. He thought about it a moment. “Are you jealous?”

“Of the bond you two share?” Mal considered his question. “Yes and no. Jealous that you have her, of the power of your connection but happy for her. I would not rob her of you for all the jewels, golds and silvers in all the worlds. She is my dearest friend and you are the other half of her. How could I hate you and still love her? So I am jealous that she has such a wealthy hoard of family…though I am grateful to be included in such a collection myself.”

“Good.”

“Good?” Mal laughed.

“Hey, you’re gorgeous, stiff competition. It’s good to know that you aren’t going to try and steal her.”

“Not once did I say I wouldn’t _try_ and –of the two of us- I think you the stiffer.” Mal spoke with her tongue in cheek and he was silent for a stunned moment.

Then they both laughed.

Mal sobered a little when Regina practically bounded back into the room and hopped onto the end of the bed. She clambered over them to grip Daniel by the hand and then haul him with her as she reversed off the foot of the mattress.

Daniel gently disentangled himself from Mal and followed Regina where she was leading so that she could rather unceremoniously shove him into the bathroom and order him to take off his shorts.

Mal propped her head up on her hand and sighed. She told herself that she truly wasn’t jealous but there was no need for Regina to go rubbing her face in it. She blinked and focussed when she realised Regina was watching her from the doorway of the bathroom.     

“I’m going.” Mal rolled her eyes and sat up to swing her legs over the side of the bed.

She glanced down at this ‘tee shirt’ contraption she wore and wondered if it would be enough to go padding about the house in. Regina seemed particularly skittish at the thought of Mal being seen without suitable apparel around Henry.

Whatever the hell constituted ‘suitable’ anyway.

“Are you sure?”

Maleficent stilled at the offer, recognising it instantly for what it was. She blinked at Regina, the temptation felt sinful on her tongue and then she looked away.

“Enjoy one another. Three is a crowd.” Mal offered a small smile and spun away, gathering up her jeans and trying to remember how to manually get into them.

Regina watched her dress (not without appreciation) and hummed in her throat.

“Okay, we’ll see you at breakfast.”

“Of course.” Mal escaped from the room as quickly as she was able.

Just yesterday she would have pounced on both Regina and the opportunity she presented in an instant. She’d have taken her as easily as she would any other prey and she’d have had both Regina and Daniel _enjoy it_ too. She’d have sated them all and been well pleased with herself.

Just yesterday.

Before she’d seen those sad wolf eyes watching her over dinner. Before she’d realised that she _cared_ about sad wolf eyes.

Mal snorted a green plume of smoke in disgust and hurled herself from the room.

She was unaware that Regina smirked as the dragon stormed away.

She also didn’t hear the ‘about damn time’ that was cut off with a yelp when Daniel’s patience evaporated and he yanked Regina deeper into the bathroom.

Maleficent was far too occupied with her own thoughts and how best she might keep herself from making the little wolf sad again.

Because she couldn’t stand it.

 

**_Later…_ **

 

Ruby looked up when the diner door jangled and she went carefully still when one of her least favourite people limped inside.

She was further discouraged when Mister Gold spotted her and made straight for her.

“Miss Lucas.”

“Mister Gold.” Ruby nodded as cordially as she could allow and was a little surprised when the imp hopped up onto a barstool and appeared to settle himself for the duration. Well, she could always make her escape if it came down to it. “Tea?”

“Tea would be lovely.” Gold smiled winsomely, flashing his gold teeth and Ruby narrowed her eyes a little.

Weird.

Still, she turned away with a small nod (she wasn’t one of the heavyweights, she couldn’t peel off his face without being mulched no matter how much she might like to). Ruby diligently made the pot of tea, with honey and cream as he preferred and turned back to lay the set out in front of him.

She stared down at the hundred he held out to her.

Her eyes ticked up to meet his and narrowed a little.

“Your tab’s not due yet.”

“This is for you.”

“Why?” Ruby made no move to take the money. She didn’t even look at it again. She watched Gold instead.

“I have need of your services.” Gold laid the bill down next to the cup and saucer.

“Wish granted.” Ruby waved meaningfully at the tea.

“No-o.” Gold held up a finger and smiled almost…almost nervously. “I have need of your nose.”

“Huh.” Ruby folded her arms over her chest and rocked back on her heels. “Again: why?”

“Because I cannot do it magically. Well, not with my own magic. It needs to be done…delicately.” Gold picked and chose his words carefully.

“I have never, in the history of ever, heard of anyone call a werewolf ‘delicate’.” Ruby snorted.

“And yet you are. Few wolves have your control. Control I am more than willing to compensate you for.” Gold smiled winsomely and Ruby could see it.

She could see how he had sealed all of those deals. She could see how he had finagled and wormed his way into the business of everyone in the Enchanted Forest for reasons they did not yet know. Reasons he had not seen fit to inform them of.

Ruby’s jaw rocked to the side and something occurred to her.

What would Regina do?

Ruby herself wanted to tell Gold _exactly_ where he could put his money. Possibly give a practical demonstration too…but then she wouldn’t know why he wanted her help. She wouldn’t know what he was up to.

The power stakes had shifted in Storybrooke. Regina hadn’t come out and said it but Ruby could very nearly smell it. Regina was _powerful_ now. Powerful in a way that made Ruby’s hackles rise for no damn reason even when she knew in her bones that Regina was a friendly (most of the time).

So it made sense that Gold would be trying to shift the balance in his favour again. Of course he would. It wasn’t in a scorpion’s nature not to sting, after all.

“I’m loyal to Regina. She’s Pack now. All of them are.” Ruby cocked her head. Seeing where this would go.

“This will not harm her.”

“Physically, emotionally or otherwise?” Ruby met his eyes without hesitation. “I want the truth. I’ll smell a lie.”

“Not physically.” Gold decided after a moment. “Nor otherwise. If you act now.”

Ruby looked away and chuckled ruefully. Typical Gold. Telling her what she wanted to hear. Her own emotional response had drowned out his. She wasn’t sure if that had been the truth at all. She should have known he could play her like a damn fiddle. 

“Don’t believe me?” Gold tilted his head, trying to get her to look at him again.

 _That_ caught Ruby’s attention. He was…he _needed_ her help. He didn’t just want it, he needed it. Whatever it was he was cooking up, Ruby was his best chance of getting it.

“What exactly do you need me for?” Ruby wanted him to come out and say it. Right here, in front of witnesses preferably.

“Your tracking skills. I have a need to find someone.” Gold shifted in his stool and looked uncomfortable. “It is a personal matter.”

“Isn’t it always?” Ruby snorted.

“I swear that it will harm no one you care about. I swear on _my power_ that this is the best way for you to protect your Pack. Such as it is.”

Ruby’s lips peeled back from her teeth at the insult, veiled as it was, but she suspected it had been more habit than malice that had Gold voice it. She considered him another moment.

“Say it again.”

“I swear on my power that your actions combined with mine will protect your pack.”

“Again.”

Gold growled a little himself through clenched teeth. He shoved his hand through a clutch of his hair and spoke with biting words.

“Thrice it is asked and thrice sworn: ally yourself with me and it works towards the betterment of your pack.”

Ruby watched him for a long moment and hummed deep in her throat. That still seemed dangerously open to interpretation.

“I’m not promising anything.” Ruby said after a moment. “Tell me what you want and then I’ll decide.”

Gold stilled and calculated. He inhaled deeply and let it out on a sharp exhale. Reaching into his inner pocket, Gold’s fingers closed over something plastic.

That was all Ruby heard before the door to the diner jangled and she was hit with the scent of dragon. A particular dragon that seemed etched into her senses no matter what she did or how long she ran in the woods for.

She turned her head, helpless to do otherwise, and blinked when she saw Mal.

She smiled despite herself when Mal did. Seemingly unintentionally as well.

It lasted for only a second. A perfect instant.

Then Mal noticed Gold.

“Oh _bollocks_.” Gold sighed.

Mal _screamed_.

She surged across the diner in an instant, scales already rupturing over her skin, magic pluming around her in midnight green smoke.

Gold hissed, lunging to meet her out of self-defence, and they clashed hard enough to shake the diner right down to its foundations.

The floor cracked in half, tables bucked, patrons tumbled from their chairs. Screams echoed throughout the room, the entire bar subsided dangerously as the floor began to tilt. Fissures raced over the walls, branching across the forest wallpaper and spider webbing across the ceiling.

Granny stepped out of the kitchen, took in the situation at a glance and growled a single irritated word.

“Really?”

Mal and Gold were locked for one terrible moment. Their respective powers smashing into one another like stormfronts. A hurricane forming between them and Ruby wasn’t sure who was going to come out on top but she was pretty sure the diner wasn’t going to survive it for much longer.

Then Mal roared.

With an effort, she switched her grip on Gold’s jacket and hurled him backwards.

He smashed out through the back of the diner, taking out most of the back wall, the back fence and smashing into the road beyond almost crashing into the guesthouse next. He tumbled end over end before he managed to get his fingers and toes latched onto the ground and yanked himself to an abrupt halt.

“Maleficent, calm down.” He was breathing hard, blood trickling from his eyes, ears and nose. “It’s not whatever you think it is.”

Mal stalked out of the gaping hole that had been the back of the diner. Her magic billowing around her. Her eyes burned like suns, her teeth already too big for speech so she growled horrifically instead.

“Seriously, dearie. You’re overreacting.” Gold tried for a smile as he stood up, bracing himself for the impact.

It would be useless to fight her in the mood she was in. She was entirely irrational and he had little clue as to why. He supposed she might now consider the diner her territory but she had not marked it in any way so how the hell had he been supposed to know?

“I meant no offence.” Rumple tried again.

She backhanded him a hundred yards down the street.

Rumple pried his face out of the road and spat asphalt.

“Lovely.” He croaked. He considered teleporting away but it would only delay the inevitable.

For whatever reason, she was very cross with him and had decided to beat the stuffing out of him. He could run, but she would only catch him. Besides, she wasn’t interested in killing him, she had no desire to deal with the Dark One fallout that would incur. So she wanted him to suffer

Rumple staggered to his feet and turned to meet Mal again.

Fine, of his options, taking the beating was the least inconvenient. Though he would draw the line at being _eaten_. He would put up with a lot in the name of expediency but NOT digestion.

Mal was –surprisingly- still in her human form though her draconian characteristics were certainly making themselves felt. Scales glittered on her skin, her cheekbones were sharp enough to cut paper and her eyes glowed eerily. Smoke billowed from her nose and mouth with every breath and she did seem angrier than he had ever seen her before.

What in the seven hells was up with her?

Rumple was willing to take the beating so that they both didn’t destroy the town but he thought this a little extreme for whatever infraction she imagined he had committed.

“Do I at least get to know what I have _done_?” Rumple growled and Mal’s pupils blew so wide that her eyes seemed entirely black.

 **“What you have DONE?”** Mal’s voice rattled the street. **“You cannot be unaware, worm. You cannot be _ignorant_. How could you NOT KNOW?!”**

Rumple considered his limited options and decided if he was going to get the kicking he might as well deserve it in some way.

“Is this about Regina? Because I assure you that I- -urk!” Rumple choked off when Mal’s hand manacled around his throat and wings burst from her back all in one move.

Rumple’s eyes widened, he had been unaware that she could do that, but then they were off and he had little else to occupy his mind other than the prevailing need to breathe.

 

**_Back in the Diner…_ **

 

“Screw ‘orderly fashion’ get the hell out!” Ruby gritted and glared at one of the regulars that was creeping towards the door.

Fair enough one of the support beams had given way and crashed through the ceiling but Ruby had managed to catch it and whilst it was restricting the doorway somewhat, it could still be used as a fucking _emergency exit!_

Ruby grunted, straining under the weight of the concrete beam that was at least a foot square in width. She heaved, her arms shaking and managed to keep it steady.

Granny had stubbornly refused to leave until everyone else was out first and was bodily hauling people out from under toppled furniture and booths in order to hurl them headfirst out of the nearest exit, be it window or door. Some of the windows had even been smashed free of glass first. She might be frail for a werewolf, but she was nothing of the kind in human terms and she slid Grumpy clean across the diner floor on his belly to careen out of the doorway and tumble down the porch.

“What the fresh- -Ruby!” Regina was suddenly _there_.

“Hey, sis.” Ruby managed a smile and huffed out a desperate breath of relief when Regina’s magic engulfed the support beam and relieved Ruby of its weight.

“Start talking.” Regina waved her hand and the beam toppled _up_ into the ceiling and sealed itself back in place.

“Gold was here, started talking to me, Mal turned up. Went postal.” Ruby fell forward to catch herself on her knees and gasped for air. That beam was heavier even than it looked.

“She threw him out the back. They were fightin’ in the street there last I saw.” Granny watched as Regina irritably flicked her fingers and repaired the diner in record time. She nitpicked when Regina put a booth back. “Little to the left.”

“It’s always been there.” Regina frowned.

“Aye, and I want it a little to the left. Solar panels too, whilst ye’re at it.”

Regina scowled but moved the booth anyway and hauled the back wall of the diner back on. She sealed the cracks and made sure the place was at least water tight before turning back to the matter at hand.

“What did he do?”

“He was just talking to me.” Ruby straightened up, trying to rub the feeling back into her arms. “He was talking to me and then Mal came in and she screamed and they kind of tackled one another and then she beaned him clean out the back wall.” Ruby waved.

“Come on.” Regina started for the back of the diner.

“Why me?” Ruby grumbled a little. She had just caught the roof, could she not catch a break as well?

“Really?!” Regina and Granny said together.

“I’m going!” Ruby held up her hands in surrender.

Regina gripped one of those hands and purple magic engulfed them both. They reappeared outside on the street between the Diner and the Guesthouse and Regina’s head was on a swivel as she searched for any sign of Mal and the destruction she currently represented.

“There.” Ruby pointed down the street to a furrow that had been torn into the asphalt.

 It was at least ten yards long and it looked a lot like what had happened to the street when Blue had hurled Regina into it or Emma had wrestled Mal into it (though the dragon sized furrow had been significantly wider and had ended in a dead Library).

Regina teleported them again to the end of the furrow and dropped to one knee. She was breathing hard, wild eyed, but Ruby couldn’t see or smell any sign of them. She had no idea where Mal or Rumple had gone.

“Are they still…here?” Ruby looked up and down the street.

“They must be. Neither of them can leave. Which means that we’re trapped here with them.” Regina’s voice was tight.

“Storybrooke’s a big place.”

“Not big enough.” Regina was tense, her magic snapping and crackling around her as she searched for any sign of either sorcerer.

“Seriously?” Ruby had the sense to look a little more alarmed.

“You ever see those domes they bolt down onto the road to control explosive detonations on the news?”

“Ye-eah…” Ruby did not like where this was going.

“Imagine the shield around Storybrooke like that. Now think of Mal as dynamite and Rumple as a match. We are in _trouble_ if we cannot find them and diffuse them. I had no _idea_ she was this mad at him.” Regina seethed out a breath and tunnelled her fingers through her hair.

“What’s that sound?” Ruby twitched and looked about herself, it echoed oddly. “It’s like…broken glass and whales.”

Regina stiffened and then she jerked back, looking straight up.

“Fucking _hell_.” Regina outright gaped (though she’d deny it later).

She lifted her hands, spanning a spell between them and threw them wide. The spell warped the air, bending it like a lens and the sky above them was suddenly much clearer.

“Is she…?” Ruby leaned in closer to Regina so that she might see through the spell too.

“Yes. It would appear she is trying to beat him to death against the barrier straight above us.” Regina growled low and displeased.

Ruby could see through the spell that Mal was somewhere between her dragon and her human form. Mostly human but with scales, wings, horns and a tail. She beat her wings hard, her tail lashing, and repeatedly and viciously slammed Rumplestiltskin into the domed barrier around Storybrooke. She hadn’t had the patience to fly out to the town border so she had simply flown straight up and introduced Rumple’s face to the magic (or lack thereof) with extreme prejudice.

Rumple seemed to strike the barrier like it was a physical thing thought he did not seem _overly_ distressed, he certainly didn’t look like he was enjoying himself. He clung desperately to Mal’s wrist, in the hope that she would not think to drop him, and gritted his teeth against the burning magic of the barrier.

“Okay, plan.” Regina sucked in a deep breath, thinking furiously. Gods, she didn’t want to bet on this, not so soon, not with it so new between them…

“Regina?”

Regina looked over at Ruby. Earnest, good, kind, Ruby and she closed her eyes, her hands clenching into fists. She had to take the chance. She could not risk Mal losing it entirely and destroying the entire town just so she could mulch Rumple a little.

Besides, the imp may yet be useful again. Her mother was still out there somewhere a world away.

“I’m going to teleport up there, I’m going to grab Rumple and I’m going to come _straight back_.” Regina gripped Ruby by the shoulders. “We will have _seconds_ before Mal senses him again. Her senses are unbelievably keen. When she comes back, grab her.”

“Grab he- -are you on glue?” Ruby stared at Regina. “She’ll turn me into a fuzzy little pancake!”

“She will stop herself.” Regina shook her head and dredged up a smile from somewhere. “She will NOT hurt you. I promise.”

“She’ll be going at nine hundred miles an hour!”

“And you are a werewolf!” Regina cut herself off from yelling. She huffed out a breath. “You have to trust me. If left unchecked, she will level the Eastern Seaboard.”

Ruby’s eyes went wide.

“Not even kidding a little.” Regina offered a wavering smile. “Ready to play catch?”

Ruby glanced up through the telescopic spell and pressed her lips together. She had no idea if she could be umpire to a dragon sized baseball but if Regina had asked…if Regina had asked then it needed done. She nodded a little shakily.

“You’re going to be fine.”

“Go before I change my mind.”

“Trust me.”

“Yeah. I’d better get next Saturday off for this.” Ruby looked more than a little harassed.

“I’ll have Henry wait tables.” Regina smiled a little and then she was gone.

She left the spell in place so that Ruby could see what was happening.

Regina plumed into the sky just below Mal and Rumple, purple magic obscuring her for a moment. She lunged out of the spell and manacled her hand around Rumple’s ankle. She kicked out her legs, twisting violently and Rumple was yanked from Mal’s hold. Regina snatched him around the waist and let gravity do the rest, dropping sharply away from Mal.

Mal whirled on her tail, impossibly fast, claws raking for Rumple’s hide.

She caught nothing but smoke as Regina did as she had said and teleported them both again. They landed hard right beside Ruby, staggering back, Regina holding up Rumple as he sagged in her hold.

“Morning.” He croaked.

“What did you do?!” Regina shook him a little.

“I swear to god, I was drinking _tea_.” Rumple grumbled.

“Uh…guys?” Ruby backed up a little out of animal instinct. “Incoming.”

“Remember, you have to catch her.” Regina shifted Rumple higher so that she could loop his arm over her shoulders.

“Sure.” Ruby gulped audibly, watching Mal stoop on them. “No problem.”

“She’ll be flattened.” Rumple grumbled, in no state to teleport himself away.

“Shut up.” Regina jostled him hard with an elbow in his ribs.

“Ow.”

“A little quiet for concentration please?!” Ruby didn’t look away from Mal.

God, this was terrifying.

Mal had tucked her wings as soon as she had seen where Rumple had gone and dropped like an arrow. The sound of air rushing over her horns and wings issued an eerie whistling sound like a falling bomb. Her glowing eyes were fixed solely on Rumple and she had sight only for him. If she even noticed the rest of the world existed then she gave no indication at all.

She stooped directly on them, heading straight for Rumple, magic and smoke streaming from her in a vapour trail of pure malice.

A hundred metres.

Fifty metres.

Twenty.

Ten. 

“Aw hell.” Ruby didn’t have _time_ to pray but she hurled herself to meet Mal head on anyway.

She grabbed blindly, her eyes shut and her entire body braced for impact. She caught Mal around the waist and prepared herself to crash into Rumple and Regina both but…

It never happened.

Ruby slowly opened one eye.

Then the other.

She looked down, her feet were still on the ground. Mal was towering over her, so that Ruby standing straight only managed to reach her waist. Heat and magic belted off her in waves. Snorting breaths of smoke billowed down over Ruby’s head, glittering through her hair and vast purple wings blotted out the sun but –most importantly- she was decidedly not dead.

“Huh.” Ruby didn’t let go of Mal but she stood back a little and looked up.

Mal stared back down at her.

Ruby was dimly aware of Rumple opening his mouth to say something stupid probably and Regina teleported them both away before he could break whatever spell Ruby had over Mal.

Maleficent looked down at Ruby and hummed a low rumble in her chest that was currently higher than Ruby’s own head.

“Uh…hi.” Ruby tried tentatively. It did not seem like Mal was home.

Mal blinked slowly at her and lifted one over sized hand glittering with talons to pet Ruby on top of her head. She crooned a low sound like a purr and Ruby smiled with the adrenaline shakes. She took it in her stride when Mal’s smile was filled with fangs.

“There ya go, much better.” Ruby stepped back a little further, loosening her hold on Maleficent and realising her mistake when Mal suddenly realised the rest of the world existed and she had been in the middle of something.

She gave a preternatural shriek when she found Rumple missing and lunged to the spot where she had last seen him.

“Whoa now!” Ruby leapt and grabbed onto the nearest thing she could and that was how she found herself nose to nose with Mal and hanging from her horns.

Mal drew up short when she suddenly had a face full of werewolf but she seemed distracted again.

Distracted. She needed to distract her.

“Hey, do you know where the stables are?”

Mal cocked her head, her eyes fully draconian, and causing Ruby to swing from her hold on her horns.

“Horses. Can you find horses?”

That seemed to take a while to filter through and then Mal ducked slowly. She bent forward until Ruby’s sneakers could touch the buckled road again. Ruby switched her hold from horns to tattered jacket one hand at a time so that she never lost her grip. Mal seemed content to focus on Ruby so long as she was physically attached. Maybe it was a dragon thing.

“Yeah, there’s something I want to show you at the stables. You wanna go see?”

Mal considered that silently, just breathing and then she bent again, very gently. She looped her huge arm around Ruby’s waist. Her wings unfurling slowly behind her.

Ruby groaned. The things she did for her sister.

She admirably did not shriek like a little girl when Mal launched herself skyward and took off after the smell of horse.

 

**_Later…_ **

 

“Where are we?”

Mal came to a sudden halt and Ruby turned to look up at her.

Not as far up at her as she’d had to previously. Mal was much more human sized now and closer to Ruby’s own proportions. Her clothes had repaired themselves, her wings, scales and horns had receded. Her tail still coiled and twitched behind her but she didn’t seem to notice it very much. She was too busy looking about herself with a complete lack of recognition.

“Uh…Stable Road.” Ruby licked her lips a little nervously.

She had thought better of questioning this strange hold she seemed to have over the dragon and had decided to be grateful for it instead. She had eventually managed to convince Mal to land and had led her by the hand towards the stables. As they had walked, Mal had seemed to revert more and more to what Ruby recognised as her more rational and human form.

It was odd. She seemed entirely in control in her human form and her dragon form (though distinctly more bitey) but the half and half form had seemingly been raw animal emotion incarnate. She had seemed unable to rationalise or speak at all. If she had understood what Ruby had said to her then she had given no outward sign of it.

Still, she was more herself again and that was all that mattered.

She probably wouldn’t spook the horses too much as she was.

“How did we come to be here?”

“You flew me here.” Ruby smiled at her and gave another gentle tug on Mal’s hand, starting her walking again.

“Do you like flying?” Mal sounded unconvinced of this chain of events.

“Well, it’s growing on me. I mean, you put me down when you understood that’s what I wanted.” Ruby shrugged and continued doggedly towards the stables. The sooner they had a distraction the better she thought.

“What happened?” Mal dug her heels in and came to an abrupt halt.

Ruby was swung around by the sudden yank on her hand and nearly crashed into Mal. She noticed her tail had disappeared entirely and that she was very much fully functioning in the brain box department and realised that she had missed something. She was also not at all pleased.

“Well…you kinda went nuts.” Ruby couldn’t think how to sugar coat it. She knew the truth was best and she hurried to reassure the dragon. “You didn’t hurt anyone! You just…threw Gold around a little. He’s…in one piece.”

Mal frowned, her gaze turning inward as she searched for the corresponding memories.

“I was going to the diner…he was there and he was…” Mal’s eyes darted back to Ruby.

“I know you’re mad at him for what he did to Regina,” Ruby blew out a breath, “but Reggie’s put that behind her and she seemed to think you two would kind of be the apocalypse if Gold was to throwdown with you so…maybe count to ten next time?” She looked nervously up at Maleficent.

Mal stared down at her. Privately thinking on how Ruby had gotten it so entirely wrong but really more focussed on the fact that the little wolf was _holding her hand_ and did not seem afraid in the slightest. She stood there, on the road, with Maleficent and held her hand. She held her hand and she did not tremble or cry or run. Her eyes were steady and not sad.

Mal smiled suddenly.

“Is that a yes?” Ruby smiled tentatively in return and Mal tried to rein herself in.

“As you wish.”

“Okay, ‘cause, this is the only town I’ve got and I kinda like it. And Granny’s been building up the Diner forever so…she’s kinda attached. I think you’re going to have to put solar panels on the roof though to make up for drop kicking the back wall off.” Ruby turned back to the road and continued along it, pulling Mal with her.

“Of course.” Mal fell into step with her, letting herself be pulled along. She inhaled deeply, catching the scent of wolf and…horse. “Why are we here?”

“Lots of reasons.” Ruby shrugged.

“Enumerate.” Mal demanded.

“Well, there aren’t that many civilians out here, hardly any property for you to trash and I do actually have something to show you.”

“I don’t eat horses.” Mal looked about herself as they rounded a bend in the road and a low building of horse stalls came into view. “Regina does not like it.”

“I didn’t bring you here for lunch.” Ruby huffed and wondered if she could ever have a conversation with Mal that did not revolve around Regina.

At least Mal smelled so strongly now of dragon and magic that Ruby almost missed the base notes of Regina and Daniel’s scents embedded in her skin.

“What then?” Mal lengthened her stride so that she walked level with Ruby but made no move to let go of her hand. In fact, she laced their fingers together.

“Well, I was thinking that…I might save you the trouble of going home.”

Mal swung her head around and subjected Ruby to a particularly heavy gaze.

“Operation Kingfisher. Seems like a lot of effort and I thought, if I could save everybody the trouble then you all might not end up blowing up the town or similar.” Ruby smiled warily up at the dragon and didn’t know what to do with that particular expression.

Mal was just watching her, still walking beside her, but watching her with that dangerously neutral expression that could just as easily preclude a laugh as it could evisceration. Ruby had learned that it was an apex predator thing. Daniel and Regina could do it too though Daniel’s was usually canted towards the laughter scale so long as Regina hadn’t gotten herself in trouble again.

Ruby wondered if she ever looked like that to humans.

Something seemed to occur to Mal and her face changed into something that might have been evasive.

“I am going…home to fetch Cobalt.” Her hand tightened on Ruby’s and then she forced herself to loosen her grip.

“Yeah, I know.” Ruby smiled and then leaned around Mal and pointed. “That’s what I’m saying; he’s right here.”

Mal frowned, not understanding, but twisted to follow Ruby’s finger. Her frown melted away when she saw, in the paddock beyond the one they walked beside, a small black pony.

Mal’s lips parted and she blinked, her brain taking a moment to catch up with what her senses were telling her. She stepped away from Ruby, towards the paddock fence, gripping it so hard that the top post creaked.

The horses in the field lifted their heads and whickered to one another, deciding on whether or not they should be alarmed. They decided as one to retreat to a safe distance and Cobalt finally lifted his head, tossing his shaggy mane out of his eyes. His nostrils flared, recognising her scent and he whinnied sharply.

“Cobalt!” Mal laughed and vaulted over the fence, springing across the field and heedless of the horses that scattered frantically away from her.

She scrambled over the next fence just as quickly (well, she might have run clean through it but details were for mortals) and dropped to her knees when Cobalt galloped towards her on his little legs. He slithered to a halt, raking up furrows in the grass, and whinnied again when he recognised her fully.

He still wore his enchanted collar. It kept him stunted and small but he was the same. Precisely the same. Even his horn had grown back.

“Dear one, I have _missed you_.” Mal laughed, her voice thick and her eyes burning with an emotion she did not care to name.

This stupid human form and this weak human heart that had her _feel_ things. She thought it highly overrated.

Until she felt Cobalt push his velvet muzzle into her hands and nuzzle her affectionately. She laughed, a wet sound, and threw her arms around his neck. She could not do this as a dragon, true, he would never have allowed it in her natural form, but he leaned into her gratefully as she scrunched her hands in his mane and petted his thick fur.

He was quite the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.

“I started by looking at the records the stable keeps with the town hall. Then I saw that the _Mirror_ had written a little by-line about a unicorn coming over with us and it didn’t take Regina’s brain to put it together.”

Mal twisted on her knees to see Ruby looping her arms over the fence and smiling down at Mal.

Mal felt hot tears slide over her face as she realised she had been wrong.

Cobalt was not _quite_ the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

“So…this is happy, right?” Ruby waved at Mal and pressed her lips nervously together. “I mean, it’s not an insult to cut off a heroic quest before it starts or anything is it?”

“I am hardly a hero.” Mal’s voice was hoarse and she stood slowly, leaning on Cobalt to steady herself as she realised _what_ she was feeling.

Ruby had been able to stop her. Ruby alone had been able to get through to her. When she had been in a towering rage and ready to destroy everything in her path so as to reduce Rumple to a fine smear of grease, _Ruby_ had been able to get through to her.

Not even Regina could make such a claim.

Not only that but she had done _this._ She had found Cobalt. She had bothered to look. She had thought about it and tracked him down. Because Mal had missed him. For no other reason than that. Because she wanted Mal to be _happy_.

“Maleficent?” Ruby put her foot on the bottom rung of the fence, preparing to clamber over, the dragon had gone pale. “You okay? I mean, you’ve gone a funny- -mmf!”

Ruby froze, halfway over the fence and her eyes wide when Mal crossed the distance between them in two long strides, tangled her fingers in Ruby’s hair and dragged her mouth down over hers.

The kiss was _electrifying_.

The biting had been good. The biting had been _so_ good. It had soothed an ache that Ruby had been carrying for decades. She’d felt satisfied in a way she never had before when Mal had taken everything she could dish out and been _fine_ but this…this was a whole other level.

Ruby growled, leaning further over the fence, trusting Mal to hold her up.

The dragon didn’t falter an inch, shifting her weight back, winding her arms around Ruby’s waist and licking her tongue into Ruby’s mouth with a hunger that made Ruby whimper.

She was so soft, but there was a hardness beneath that. A solidity that was not mortal. That was not breakable. Silk over steel. She smelled so good. She assaulted every single one of Ruby’s sky high senses just by being. It was like the best cocktail Ruby had ever had. Better. She wasn’t going to feel crap in the morning after a taste of Mal. She _swore_ she wasn’t.

Though, the real world intruded, Ruby’s hips were sore from where she was leaning over the fence. The wooden railing digging into her hips and legs. She shifted uncomfortably and Mal finally pulled away.

“Am I hurting you?” Her pupils were blown so wide that her eyes were nearly entirely black. She was breathing hard, her breath heat hazing between them, her hair was wild and she looked delightfully mussed.

“No, I’m fine, I just…” Ruby disentangled herself from Mal, moving to climb over the fence. What was to come next required that there be nothing between them. Least of all fences.

“I love you.”

Ruby went completely. Stock. Still.

She blinked. Her eyes darting up to Mal’s who at least had the decency to look surprised that she had said as much. She considered what she had just said and then shrugged. Helpless. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help how she felt.

Neither could Ruby.

Which was why she ran.

She hit the ground with all four paws going hell for leather and she did NOT look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting on my harddrive 'nearly finished' for far too long. So I finally knocked it out to give to y'all. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, drop me a comment if you did (if I haven't managed to scare EVERYBODY away) and I'll catch you on the H+1/2 side too!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPEED WRITING!
> 
> Excuse any mistakes plz. 
> 
> Also, could it be?! IS IT PLOT?!
> 
> It may well be.
> 
> Enjoy.

**Chapter 49 – Always With the Sparring**

**_The Ugly Duckling…_ **

 

Daniel rolled his head on his neck and popped the bones there with an audible crackle. He slowly smiled, hunching his shoulders and bounced the solid steel bar in his hand that served as his ‘practice blade’. It was fully six feet long and as thick around as his own brawny wrist. He breathed deeply, Hyde’s power flaring from his Y shaped scar to burn brightly behind the steely staples of his scar in time with his inhale and dim with the exhale.

Lady Eleanor was unimpressed.

“When ye’re quite done posturing.” She drawled.

“Quite.” Daniel’s grin held too many teeth.

Hyde still wasn’t talking to him but his power had been made available to him for this. The monster seemed to recognise that it was to their collective betterment and had handed over the reins, as it were, to let Daniel do what he liked.

It bothered him, Hyde’s sullen silence, but there was little he could do about it. He knew the monster was not gone and still lived beneath his skin, he was wary for deception and hardly complacent and that was all he could do.

“Always with an answer.” Eleanor scolded but she was smirking and her grin too held fangs of a bone crushing nature.

Daniel glanced over at their observers. Rachel, Merida and Lord Fergus. Fergus was there to bark instruction –to Daniel, he daren’t to his wife- Merida was there to learn as much as possible as her parents recognised the kind of town they now lived in and Rachel was there to seal wounds should they prove too much for even Daniel and Eleanor to fend off with their monstrous constitutions.

Daniel had been sparring with the Dunbroch’s for the better part of six weeks now and he had _quickly_ proved that anyone less than Eleanor was simply no challenge to him. Even Lord Fergus was not fast or vicious enough to keep up with Daniel. Eleanor alone with her curious power, could hope to keep up with him.

Keep up with him, it turned out, and school him on a regular basis.

“Got to salvage my pride somehow.” Daniel grinned and Eleanor shook her head.

It was not a long suffering motion, he had the sense that he was honorary clan to Eleanor and the rest of the Dunbrochs. Despite his attachment to Regina. She was brutal in her lessons, often requiring him to draw on Hyde’s power both during and after in order to keep himself in one piece, but she was fair and he learned much from every spar.

Eleanor, as always, caught him by surprise.

Hyde would have seen it coming. Daniel was fast enough to notice the shift in weight, the ripple of muscles, but he did not have the honed reflexes and ingrained muscle memory that Hyde’s form did. He saw the movement, tracked it, but by the time he had consciously processed it, Eleanor was across the yard behind the _Ugly Duckling_ and had headbutted him in the solar plexus hard enough to hurl him into the brick wall of the building opposite.

Daniel was sent reeling by the blow and he was not as fast or as trained as she but he wasn’t _far_ behind. He twisted in the air like a cat, flipping over himself, his steel bar throwing up sparks when it caught on the cement courtyard and he landed boots first against the wall. He bent to a crouch, perpendicular to the ground, and absorbed the impact that had near shattered his kneecaps the first couple of times she had thrown him thus.

Daniel hopped off the wall, the rush of air preceding Eleanor the only warning he got, and he felt steely claws rake the line of hair over his stomach. Sparking against the staples there. He twisted to avoid being gutted (he had learned not a pleasant experience even if he could survive) and tumbled over his shoulder when he hit the ground again.

He lashed out wildly with the bar, trying to give himself space to get his feet under him again but Eleanor’s head snapped around and her teeth closed around the bar in an iron grip.

He felt the click of her jaw locking and used it to his advantage, he hauled himself up to his feet, using her grip on the bar to help him, planted his feet, and _hauled_.

Eleanor was flipped, still light enough for him to throw around, and she smashed into the concrete with a bone rattling impact. She grunted, her jaws parting, and Daniel yanked his ‘sword’ free from her teeth and swung it high over his head in a momentous arc.

Eleanor was gone by the time it crashed down onto the ground and split the concrete like cracked eggshell.

She rolled over her own shoulder, surging up to her feet in one sinuous move that grew more and more ponderous as she _changed_.

Her shoulders hunched and hulked, her neck expanding, skin splitting. Clothes fell from her in magic burned rags as her muscles exploded outward. Black silken fur rolling over her increasing body in a sweeping tide. Her face crunched outward, her nose and teeth buckling, elongating into a long snout. Her ears inched back and up over her skull. Her legs thickened, bunched and staggered beneath her weight but she kept herself upright through dint of decades of practice.

It was not a pretty change. She had been cursed after all. It was no slow roll of light suffusing magic. It was blood and pain and heightened senses swamping her in the wake of that agony. It was black fur and blacker eyes.

Lady Eleanor, Lady Eleanor the _bear_ , swung around to meet Daniel.

He had wasted no time in staring agog at her transformation. He had done that the first time and she had dislocated his arm in three places for ‘gawping’.

Daniel sprang up, hurling himself onto her broad back. She was huge. Bigger than a Grizzly, bigger even than a polar bear and black. Blacker than the night. More a living shadow than anything else.

Even Hyde had been impressed when he had seen this side of her.

And aroused but Daniel tried not to think about that.

Daniel swung his metal bar around and caught the other end of it as he gripped her furred flanks with his knees. His knuckles whitened, his shoulders bunched and the veins stood out along the corded muscles of his forearms as he _pulled_.

Eleanor bellowed in rage at having a steel bar clamped across her throat. She was not to be dissuaded though.

She toppled backwards, like a felled tree, and Daniel tried to loose his hold and scramble away but she clamped one huge paw over his arm, meathook claws sinking into his skin and sinews.

Daniel seethed a breath in pain and tensed when he realised he wasn’t getting away.

The impact was _shocking_. A tonne of bear sandwiching him to the concrete but this wasn’t their first spar and he was practiced at fighting bigger opponents.

Eleanor was off him in a flash, on her four, and she fell on him with a roaring ferocity that could and had turned armies back from the battlefield.

Her steely claws sang through the air, she reared and smashed down, intending to stave in his chest through sheer bulk and she slashed whenever Daniel tried to squirm away but she couldn’t _quite_ lay her paws on him.

Daniel twisted and jinked beneath her. He moved as if he didn’t have bones in the normal spaces. He kicked out when he could and struck her smartly across the snout whenever there was an opening and he wasn’t smashing away her paws with spark riddled blows of steel against magical claws.

He was sweating, it poured from him. His scar flared brightly, his sweat steaming on contact with the science that wisped from it. He was breathing hard, pain coming on the heels of every breath, her weight had cracked his ribs and they weren’t healing fast enough.

But he was smiling.

It dropped in a harsh hiss when Eleanor twisted her wrist in a movement that a real bear could not have pulled off and her claws raked over his wrist, severing the tendons there. His fingers went slack, the bar dropping from his grip and smacking him in the nose. Daniel cursed when it cracked under the weight of the bar and blood filled his mouth.

He felt something like concern when Hyde didn’t even stir at the flood of his absolute favourite flavour spilling over his tongue.

No matter.

Daniel lashed out with a balled fist and hit Eleanor not quite as hard as he could have across her snout.

She reared back with a bellow, one paw going to her nose, shaking her great blocky head, blinking hard.

Daniel scrambled away, needing time for his tendons in his wrist to knit together. He held his hand in place, he didn’t want it healing awkwardly, that way led to cutting it open and resetting it. He circled Eleanor, who he had succeeded in pissing off with that haymaker.

Eleanor, blood streaming from her own nose, snorted in anger that was not entirely feigned. Her black eyes glittered and her shoulders rolled as she prepared to hurl herself at Daniel again.

Daniel was somewhat occupied with his hand and trying to keep it attached so he was hoping to dive out of the way when she charged. She was bigger and heavier like this so there was more of a precursor to her movements. He was better at seeing her coming when she was this large.

Of course, she sprang just as Regina appeared between them.

“Rachel!” Regina hefted the weight that hung from her shoulders and did not notice the _giant bear_ launching itself at her.

Eleanor’s eyes flew wide when she realised there was something in her way and it would have been comical to see her scrambling madly with all four paws to slam on the breaks if she hadn’t weighed over a tonne and had been literally bearing down on Daniel’s wife.

Daniel _exploded_ into action.

Hyde came out of nowhere, grey skin, tail and all and closed the distance between himself and Regina in a fraction of a heartbeat.

He snatched Regina out of the way with a hand at her neck to keep her spine from snapping he was moving so fast. He hurled them to the side, tucking her into the curve of his huge body and smashed into the wall again when he had nowhere to go but into the side of a building.

They punched several inches into the brickwork (certainly not the first of such impressions in the yard) and mortar dust filtered down onto them.

“Hyde?” Regina looked up at him with an expression on her face that Hyde couldn’t read.

Then he was gone.

Daniel was treated to the somewhat nauseating sensation of Hyde folding inward again, careful not to burn Regina with the alien energy that powered him but not so fussed for Daniel. He knew what Daniel could take after all.

Daniel blinked suddenly himself again, Hyde burrowing ever deeper into the furthest recesses of his mind, hiding in the shadow of his oversized heart, and stared down at Regina.

“Hi.”

“That’s weird.” Regina frowned.

“Hyde or the arm you’re holding?” Daniel didn’t really want to answer questions about Hyde. Particularly since he didn’t know what was going on himself.

Regina frowned, confused and looked down. Her eyebrows flew up when she realised what she was holding.

“Crap!”

Daniel let her go when she scrambled madly to get out of his hold and back to the burden she had dropped.

Rumplestiltskin.

Daniel stilled in the action of pulling himself free of the wall when he recognised the barely conscious man sprawled in the centre of the yard. Rachel was already kneeling over him, unspooling her hair from its extensive braiding.

Daniel padded closer, standing directly behind Regina as she dropped to one knee at Rumple’s side.

She held his arm in both hands. Hyde had dragged her out of the way so quickly that even the monster had feared for her toughened spine after all. It was little surprise that Rumple’s arm had been sheared clean off at the speed they’d been travelling at. Hyde had harboured no such concern for the Dark One. It may even have been intentional.

“He’s a _mess_!” Rachel unfurled her hair over Rumple and it seemed to slither over him of its own accord, binding around his body and throbbing with that neutral golden light. “What happened?”

“He got in a fight with Mal.” Regina spoke tightly and somewhat sheepishly handed the arm over to Rachel. “I came to you. I didn’t expect you to be a fan of bloodsports.”

Regina shot a pointed look at Eleanor, who was accepting her husband’s oversized jacket and bundling her now naked human self up in the leather. She bound it tightly about her body and stepped forward to look down at this current drama.

“Oh, the wee lamb.” Eleanor’s drawl was anything but sympathy. She considered a moment and then turned to her husband. “Fergus, love, chuck him.”

“Right-o, dear!” Fergus spoke with exaggerated cheer, skirted Rachel and then bent to grip Rumple by one ankle, intending to drag him bodily from the yard.

“Fergus!” Rachel squeaked, grappling as she was nearly dragged along for the ride, her hair bound around him as it was.

“Lady Eleanor!” Regina rounded on the fellow Queen, her pupils flashing purple.

Lady Eleanor looked down at her dispassionately, her eyes blotting black for an instant, though her tone was almost civil.

“He’s barred.” She shrugged as if that explained everything.

“The _Ugly Duckling_ is neutral territory!” Regina’s hand lifted but it did not shimmer with magic even if she clearly wanted to draw on it. Daniel was friends with these people. They had cared for him. That did not mean nothing to her.

“Yes. Because the riffraff are ejected with extreme prejudice. The Unseelie in particular. His kind are no’ welcome here and he fine kens it.”

“Is Rachel ‘riffraff’?” Regina all but spat. “Do you really want to drag her out of here by her hair?”

Eleanor looked at Rachel as if the younger woman had betrayed her in some small way. She inhaled deeply and then let it out with a thrumming growl. Her eyes blackened once more.

Rachel’s jaw set and she stared back. Uncaring. She was a _doctor_. She had to help. Eleanor knew that.

Eleanor looked up at Daniel.

“Would you let someone pull Merida’s hair?”

Eleanor glanced over at her daughter, watching the proceedings with wide eyes, half crouched behind an empty beer barrel. Eleanor’s mouth twisted and she turned back to Regina.

“Fine.” She clipped her teeth audibly with each word. “But he stays _out here_.”

With that, the Lady spun on her heel and swept back into the bar. She took Merida with her through the expedient means of gripping her by the ear.

Fergus sniffed with a casual roll of his huge shoulders, dropped Rumple's ankle and followed his wife and daughter indoors. Washing his hands of the situation. 

“Thank you.” Regina looked up at Daniel.

“Didn’t do it for him.” Daniel folded his arms over his bare chest and glared down at Rumple.

He had no earthly idea why Regina wanted to save the imp on this particular day and he was honestly a little disappointed that he had arrived in the yard in one piece after tangling with Mal. Regina must have stepped in fairly early on in order to keep the dragon from eating the Dark One.

Not that the imp had escaped unscathed by any stretch.

Aside from the now detached arm, he was riddled with burns and lacerations. One eye was swollen entirely shut, bruises ringed his throat in an oversized handprint, he was missing his golden tooth and clumps of his hair. His expensive suit was ruined, in tatters over claw and bite marks that were too big for a human and too small for a dragon.

All in all, Mal had been playing with her dinner before devouring it and Daniel couldn’t muster much sympathy for her chosen aperitif.

“I know. That’s why I’m grateful.” Regina offered him a smile but it was strained. She turned back to Rachel. “What can I do?”

“See if you can match the arm up to the stump. I’ve never reattached a limb before.” Rachel had opened her medical kit and snapped on her gloves. “Good grief, how is he still breathing?”

“We’re hard to kill.” Regina muttered, savaging Rumple’s suit jacket away from his bleeding shoulder, tapping at the exposed flesh with one finger and clamping the arteries to slow the blood loss.

“Collapsed lung, ruptured pneumothorax, _massive_ internal bleeding, kidney failure, his liver is...burst, second degree burns over eighty percent of his body, fractured skull, dislocated eye socket aa-aand he’s going into hypovolemic shock and I _know_ we don’t have his type at the hospital.” Rachel spoke quickly, ticking off the injuries as they came to her and reordering them in triage order so as to deal with the most life threatening first.

If she even needed to bother. He shouldn’t even be breathing right now, never mind lolling his head and trying to wake up.

All that aside from the… _strange_ layer under his skin that should have been regular lipids but somehow wasn’t. Her hands hovered over his body, rather her hair, and she frowned at what she was sensing. It felt like…

“Scales?” She looked up at Regina for confirmation.

Regina blinked at her then pulled the detached arm from where she had been trying to jigsaw it back onto his body and peeled back the skin with a will.

“Regina!”

“Oh, look, he does still have them.”

“Can I see?” Daniel sank down onto his heels, making no effort to help but he didn’t see why he couldn’t hinder if the opportunity presented itself. He was fairly confident that Rumple wouldn’t die so any pain he could contribute to the situation was just bonus as far as he was concerned.

“Yes. Look, just like he used to have.” Regina lifted Rumple’s arm higher so that Daniel could see and Rachel resisted the urge to find something to bang her head against.

“Not. Helping.”

“Hmm? Oh.” Regina looked a trifle chastened and bent back to her task of trying to fit Rumple’s mincemeat puzzle back together.

“You’re enjoying this.” Rachel accused, her voice uncannily melodious as she focused her attentions and magic on Rumple’s leg. It was broken and fat from his marrow was leaking into his blood stream. One hand was above his head, trying to heal the fractures there. She hovered her other hand over his chest and set to recreating the seal around his lungs that would form the vacuum he needed to draw air into his lungs.

Even if she could feel…a _void_ that was mechanically pushing and pulling his remaining lung in lieu of a biological function.

Holy crap, _that_ was his magic.

Rachel peered at it with her own power and reared back when it seemed to turn and look _back_.

“Don’t flinch. Don’t show it weakness.” Regina advised, not looking up from her jigsaw.

Rachel, shaken but not dissuaded, cocooned Rumple’s thoracic cavity in her healing energy and repaired the outer layer of flesh. She felt the void magic try and squirm away from her and she realised that her healing power might harm it. She was careful not to actually touch it as she healed the damaged tissues and allowed the darkness to act as an iron lung for Rumple. As soon as the vacuum was created again, she left a gap for the void to leave Rumple’s chest and it darted away to his liver with a feral and springing motion.

Rachel blinked as her mind tried to attribute physical attributes to something that was entirely energy or perhaps more alarmingly, entirely _nothing_.

Rachel bound Rumple’s lungs in her magic now that he was no longer properly breathing and forced the collapsed one to inflate again.

Rumple sucked in a deep breath and tried to sit up all at once.

“Rumple!” Regina growled when he shifted away from her painstaking matching of torn flesh to torn flesh. It was a lot harder than it looked. “Be still.”

“What happened?” Rumple was dazed and a little drunk looking but he was breathing under his own power so Rachel was chalking that up to a win.

He looked down at his missing arm and squawked. Like a startled chicken.

Rachel blinked at the sound and resigned herself to her patient sitting up when it would do more damage to try and force him to lie down. She finally knew where Regina had gotten the trait from. 

Rumple looked down at the spool upon spool of glowing golden hair that looped around him. He could hear Rachel humming… _Yellow Submarine_.

“Am I in a Beatles video?” He leaned a little drunkenly towards Regina. “It feels like I’m in a Beatles video.”

“You picked a fight with a dragon.” Regina snapped at him and glanced up at Daniel.

Daniel scowled, mulish.

Regina cocked her head and raised an eyebrow.

Daniel growled and fisted his hand in the back of Rumple’s collar. Holding him upright that way.

“Did not.” Rumple frowned when his shoulder on one side went up when someone was pulling on his shirt collar. But not the other shoulder. Odd. He looked down to see where it had gone and squawked that startled poultry sound when he saw his arm wasn’t where it should be.

“Not fair!” He nearly whined. “I never pulled off your wings.”

“I don’t _have_ wings, Rumple.” Regina sighed, her patience running thin. She finally thought she’d got the ragged flesh to match up.

“Do so.” Rumple scowled at her. “Your mother gave them to you.” Rumple’s head lolled and fell backwards, thumping against Daniel’s arm. He grinned suddenly and toothily. “Before she died.”

Regina went still at that.

Daniel perked up considerably.

“Cora died?”

“Yup.” Rumple nodded sagely, mouth pursed. “You all killed her.”

Regina was staring at Rumple and Daniel snorted with wry amusement.

“Finally, he speaks sense.”

“He’s delirious.” Rachel huffed out a breath, she was sweating. She’d never had to heal this much damage for one person before. “He’s not had enough blood going to his brain for a while now and I can’t do a transfusion because I don’t have type _Coal_.” Rachel glared at Rumple’s black blood that seemed to be pooling rapidly around him despite all of her best efforts.

“I thought it had stopped working.” Regina murmured.

“What had stopped working?” Rachel looked harried.

 Circular breathing to keep up a constant melody was a bitch and she didn’t really have the breath to spare for idle chitchat but if Regina had found another injury, she’d rather add it to the list than not.

“His foresight. I thought the Curse had cut it off.” Regina was looking at Rumple in a particularly heavy manner. “Rumple, Rumple, look at me.”

Rumple’s head flopped down and lolled around so that he was looking in Regina’s direction.

“Can you see the future again?”

“Of course. Shell’s cracked open. Scales can smell air again. None of this mortal nonsense in the way.” He smiled and giggled in that nerve grating way of his.

“You can see Cora?” Regina asked urgently.

“All the time.” Rumple shrugged his remaining shoulder.

“Here? Now? In Storybrooke?”

“Now?” Rumple looked confused, blood was trickling from one of his eyes. “When’s that?”

“My mother, where is she?!” Regina dug her fingers into his wound and the pain galvanised him as she had known it would.

“She’s everywhere. Everywhen. The worlds cracked like my _head._ Too many you. Too many him. Hearts. All the hearts. She’s all holes and trying to fill them with the hearts. Red. Red and blue and _horrid_.” Rumple visibly shuddered and whispered hollowly. “She’s a _monster_.”

“Regina!” Rachel stopped singing when the feedback from that fresh agony blasted in her head.

“I need to know.” Regina barely glanced at Rachel. “Is Cora here in Storybrooke?”

Rumple weaved a little, blood coming from his ears now too.

“Regina, you’re killing him. A fat embolism is making its way to his brain and his skull is cracking again. The trauma has reopened his abilities but I _cannot_ let those wounds be.”

“Just a few seconds!”

“He doesn’t have them!” Rachel reached over and gripped Regina’s wrist. “Please!”

“You’re not alone, love.” Daniel spoke gently, he was now holding Rumple by the neck though not unkindly. It was to keep his head immobilised. “If he still has the ability we can wake it up again without peeling him open to the world.”

Regina looked up at Daniel, her lips pressed together, calculating. She swallowed hard and her hold slowly relaxed on Rumple’s arm and the seeping wound.

Rachel hurled a band of hair around Rumple’s skull, sucked in a deep breath and _belted_ a single pure note of song.

Regina winced at the flash of unfettered magic that somehow answered Rachel’s call and all of Rumple’s injuries succumbed to it. His black magic forced to cower in the spaces between his vertebrae as Mal had left it purposely uninjured so that he might feel _everything_.  

Rachel fell back onto her hands and knees, her hair slithering away from Rumple. She gasped as if she’d swum up from the depths of the ocean, sweat poured from her and she looked like she had actually lost weight.

“Rachel?” Regina lunged over Rumple to hesitantly touch Rachel’s shoulder.

Rachel tilted, leaning into the contact, but she wasn’t able to speak. She was gasping like she was drowning and Regina did the only thing she could think to do. She clapped her hand over Rachel’s head and poured her magic into it.

Rachel sagged, collapsing down onto her elbows but her breathing eased immediately.

Daniel lowered Rumple to the floor gently. Not for him but so as to not ruin Rachel’s hard work. The imp was complete once more. His arm whole and attached, his skull in one piece alongside the rest of him. Even his hair was renewed though there seemed a few more silvery streaks in it. He lolled unconscious but appeared to be merely sleeping.  

Regina clambered over Rumple and helped Rachel to sit up. The girl looked shaky but otherwise alright. She’d need a decent meal or six and would probably be off rotation for a while in the ER but she was whole.

“I’m sorry.” Regina let Rachel sag against her so that she held them both up. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“No. It’s not. You hurt yourself to save _him_.”  Regina glared at Rumple.

“I’m not hurt. I’m _drunk_. You lit me up like Vegas. Holy crap.” Rachel blinked in a dazed manner and made an annoyed sound when she got caught up in her own hair. “Stupid _tresses_.”

“Here.” Daniel plucked a hair brush from Rachel’s medical kid and held it out to Regina.

She was momentarily nonplussed but she shifted so that she might start to attempt to tame Rachel’s hair. Not that it seemed enamoured with the idea. It curled and slithered, seemingly with a mind of its own to get away from the brush but Regina still managed to drag the soft bristles through Rachel’s silk steel hair.

Regina’s brows rose when the hair roiled and twisted , curling itself neatly into an oversized braid that snaked down over Rachel’s back and Regina’s lap in a gleaming coil. It seemed almost self satisfied like this. Like it knew it had done well.

Regina thrust the brush back at Daniel. She didn’t like the kind of magic that she was currently pressed up against but she wasn’t about to let Rachel flop over.

“Can you stand?”

“I am sooooooo high.” Rachel giggled.

“I’ll take that as a maybe.”

“I have SUCH a case of the munchies.” Rachel let her arm be slung over Regina’s shoulders and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. She weaved a little but remained upright mostly under her own power. “I need fries. Fries and…and…chili and fried chicken and _cheese_.”

“She’s fine.” Daniel smirked.

“Hungry!” Rachel disagreed fervently.

“Okay, fries with everything it is.” Regina slipped her arm around Rachel’s slim waist and held her up more firmly. “I’m sure Eleanor will cook for _you_.”

“Out- _standing_.” Rachel reached up and patted Regina’s shoulder. “Where is the big teddy bear?”

Regina snorted. She had only caught a glimpse of the behemoth bear that Eleanor could turn into but a teddy she was not.

“She’s inside.”

“Let’s go!” Rachel pointed imperiously. Her stomach making all the calls it would seem.

“I can…”

“It’s fine.” Regina smiled down at Daniel. “You stay where you are and I’ll go feed our little stoner.”

“One time!” Rachel held up a drunken finger. “The other times don’t count because they were in a college I did NOT go to. So they’re all in my head.” Rachel narrowed her eyes. “Or _your_ head.”

“Let’s not get into that, I’ve already had it from Ruby with her Cursed wardrobe.” Regina hitched Rachel a little higher.

“You’re really leaving me with him?” Daniel waved at Rumple. Temptingly vulnerable in front of him.

“You’re not going to ruin Rachel’s hard work.” Regina shrugged her shoulder that wasn’t holding up Rachel and then promptly dragged the younger girl into the _Ugly Duckling_.

Daniel twisted to watch her go and smirked.

He did, however, give Rumple a bit of a kick when she was out of sight.

In the bollocks.

 

 


End file.
